Membership in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the EU

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a. Identify advantages and disadvantages of being a member of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the European Union (EU). Identify membership conditions for and determine whether these will have a positive or negative impact on the bilateral or multilateral relations with the United States.

Since APEC is concerned with promoting economic prosperity in the Asia-Pacific, life sciences innovation is thus very much relevant to the grouping. While APEC seeks mainly to achieve free and open trade through trade liberalization, it also has a broad agenda that includes many topics relating to regional economic growth and development. APEC's response to the impact of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), for example, demonstrates that it recognizes the importance of public health for economic growth and business confidence. Already, a number of individual APEC economies, including Thailand, have recognized and targeted emerging life sciences technologies as a new platform for economic growth and health promotion

On research and development front, APEC should support the development of human and technological resources. We should promote more investment and technological transfer both at home and across economies. As each economy is developing its own R&D capabilities, it should therefore be advantageous for us to think about combining our efforts in these areas through such means as:
Â? Exchange of best practices and policies to promote innovation, including establishment of centers of excellence for research, development and commercialization of products in APEC economies;
Â? Implementation of capacity-building projects in research and development, particularly for developing economies, and support for development of existing research and development centers into "centers of excellence" for regional activities in the life sciences field.

The United States saw significant progress over the last year on a range of policy goals in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, according to a senior State Department official. Delivering a keynote address at the Annual APEC 2005 Breakfast Briefing of the Asia Society in New York on December 1, Michael Michalak, the U.S. Senior Official for APEC, said, "2005 has been a very productive year for APEC and a year in which the United States advanced important objectives in the areas of trade, public health, security, and anti-corruption.
U.S. officials say they are "extremely pleased" with the outcome of the just-concluded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Korea, including a declaration on combating avian influenza and a statement urging movement in World Trade Organization (WTO) talks rooted in the Doha Development Agenda

Security, prosperity and freedom are critical to integrating the Asia-Pacific region, and "advancement in these three areas is inextricably tied to each other," says Michael Michalak, the U.S. senior official for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

Conditions for membership of APEC.
Â? an applicant economy should be located in the Asia-Pacific region;
Â? an applicant economy should have substantial and broad-based economic linkages with the existing APEC members; in particular, the value of the applicant's trade with APEC members, as a percentage of its international trade, should be relatively high;
Â? an applicant economy should be pursuing externally oriented, market-driven economic policies;
Â? an applicant economy will need to accept the basic objectives and principles set out in the various APEC declarations, especially those from the Economic Leaders' meetings;
Â? a successful applicant will be required to produce an Individual Action Plan (IAP) for implementation and to commence participation in the Collective Action Plans across the APEC work programme from the time of its joining APEC.
Decisions on the admission of additional members to APEC require a consensus of all existing members.

Conditions for the membership of the EU
The European Union Membership criteria are defined by the three documents:
Â? The 1992 Treaty of Maastricht (Article 49) - geographical criteria and general policy criteria
Â? The declaration of the June 1993 European Council in Copenhagen, i.e. Copenhagen criteria - describing the general policy in more details
o political
o economic
o legislative
Â? Framework for negotiations with a particular candidate state
o specific and detailed conditions
o statement stressing that the new member cannot take its place in the Union until it is considered that the EU itself has enough "absorption capacity" for this to happen.

When agreed in 1993, there was no mechanism for ensuring that any country which was already an EU ...