Tag: SAARC

BREXIT: What does it mean for Regional Integration and South Asia?

26 June 2016; by Siegfried O.  Wolf

On June 23, 2016, the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain (UK) -mostly those residing in England and Wales- held a referendum that resulted in an overall vote to leave the European Union (EU). This socalled ‘BREXIT’, a fusionist portmanteau of the words ‘Britain’ and ‘exit’, properly coined on the pattern of GREXIT (referring to the potential exit of Greece from the EU), clearly indicates that the European project of regional integration reached a pivotal moment in time.

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Rohingya Crisis and the ‘Boat People’ Conference: Towards a Regional Solution?

18 June 2015; by Siegfried O. Wolf

Image by European Commission DG ECHO

To respond to the ‘alarming rise in the irregular movement of persons in the Indian Ocean’, the Royal Thai Government organized the ‘Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean’ on May 29th, 2015 in Bangkok. Subsequently seventeen countries convened in Thailand’s capital to address the then called ‘boat people problem’ in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. Among the participants [1]were high-level representatives of the five most affected countries namely Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand. The fact that Sri Lanka, India as well as Afghanistan joined this significant event underpins the fact that the ‘boat people’ crisis is an issue which involves not only the intersection between South Asia and South East Asia but also the respective subcontinents on the whole. Continue reading “Rohingya Crisis and the ‘Boat People’ Conference: Towards a Regional Solution?”

Regional cooperation – a view from Nepal

30 January 2013; Siegfried O. Wolf

Regional integration in South Asia has reached a pivotal point in time. There is no doubt, that the states and societies of the respective region have made only little progress towards cohesive, purposeful action directed towards regional cooperation. Having the reputation of being a part of the worldwide ‘Arc of Crisis’, there was a general tendency among political analysts to attest only dramatic, grim prospects to the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the regional pendant to the European Union (EU). Continue reading “Regional cooperation – a view from Nepal”