ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) succeeded in ensuring peace and prosperity in once warlike territories. In recent years, three issues emerged as destabilising factors to the world system: the emergence of the cyber security domain, financial instability and the threats to human rights. The EU set the creation of a Digital Single Market as a priority and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was an important step in the right direction. Europeans believe that human rights violations in other countries are a potential threat to global security and are thus oriented towards a global approach on this issue. A steady and timely restart of deep and comprehensive discussions on a region-to-region EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) could ease the way to all the aforementioned fields of cooperation, including discussions regarding human rights.
