{"id":432344,"date":"2025-07-14T12:02:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T10:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/07\/14\/lue-concludera-un-accordo-di-libero-scambio-con-lindonesia-entro-settembre\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T12:40:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T10:40:43","slug":"eu-aims-to-seal-free-trade-agreement-with-indonesia-by-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/07\/14\/eu-aims-to-seal-free-trade-agreement-with-indonesia-by-september\/","title":{"rendered":"EU aims to seal free trade agreement with Indonesia by September"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels &#8211; Unable to raise its voice in the tug-of-war&nbsp;with Donald Trump, the European Union has identified two paths to avoid coming out badly: deepening the single market on the one hand, and the spasmodic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/02\/20\/eu-fishing-for-allies-in-caribbean-von-der-leyen-meets-with-caricom-leaders\/\">search<\/a>&nbsp;for new trade partnerships on the other. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Central Asia, and Australia, Brussels is trying to weave a web of free trade agreements. Yesterday (13 July), it added a new piece: the aim is to <strong>finalize<\/strong> a comprehensive economic partnership agreement with Indonesia by September.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The President of the European Commission, <strong>Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>, and the President of the Republic of Indonesia, <strong>Prabowo Subianto,<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/commission\/presscorner\/detail\/en\/statement_25_1818\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a> it. Negotiations had been ongoing for 10 years, but the global trade war unleashed by Trump forced a decisive acceleration. If the EU <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/07\/14\/prepare-for-war-eu-disappointed-with-30-percent-us-tariffs-seeks-deal-to-retaliate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">risks<\/a>&nbsp;30 percent tariffs&nbsp;as of 1 August, Indonesia fared no better: in the &#8220;letter&#8221; it received from Washington, tariffs were at 32 percent for the Southeast Asian archipelago.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_432326\" style=\"width: 456px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-432326 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"456\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-750x500.jpg 750w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P067555-701105-1140x760.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 456px) 100vw, 456px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-432326\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prabowo Subianto and Ursula von der Leyen a Brussels, 13\/07\/25<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0px\">\n<p>&#8220;In times of global challenges like these, partners must strengthen their ties,&#8221; emphasized von der Leyen on the sidelines of the political agreement reached with Subianto. The CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) will promote trade and investment between Brussels and Jakarta and will <strong>strengthen cooperation on critical raw materials<\/strong>, which are extensively mined&nbsp;on the volcanic islands of the Republic of Indonesia. &#8220;The agreement will open new markets and create more opportunities for our businesses. It will also help strengthen the supply chains of critical raw materials, <strong>essential for Europe&#8217;s clean tech and steel industry<\/strong>,&#8221; said the EU leader.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0px\">&nbsp;For the Indonesian president, the agreement &#8220;is not only about trade, it is about fairness, respect, and building a strong future together.&#8221; Indonesia, with a GDP of EUR 1.2 trillion, has rapidly become one of the largest global economies, as well as being <strong>the third largest democracy in the world and the fourth largest country by population<\/strong>. A giant in the region, accounting for over a third of the GDP of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). However,&nbsp;while the EU is the fifth largest trading partner for Indonesia in terms of trade in goods and services, conversely, Jakarta is only 33rd on&nbsp;Brussels&#8217; list. Last year, the EU exported EUR 9.7 billion worth of goods to Indonesia, while importing from the country amounted to EUR 17.5 billion.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h3 id='indonesia-and-the-deforestation-issue'  id=\"boomdevs_1\">Indonesia and the deforestation issue<\/h3>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0px\">\nMainly agricultural products and raw materials arrive from Jakarta. Palm oil, coffee, cocoa, but also coal, tin, and rubber. Products that come from the rainforests of Borneo, Sumatra, and Sulawesi: what von der Leyen does not say is that <strong>Indonesia has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world<\/strong>, which has been steadily increasing in recent years. Since 1990, the country has lost about 25 percent of its ancient forests, and according to the NGO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalforestwatch.org\/dashboards\/country\/IDN\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Global Forest Watch<\/a>, from 2001 to 2024,&nbsp;<strong>76 percent of tree cover loss is related to deforestation activities<\/strong>. Forest destruction is mainly due to mining, palm oil production, and the timber trade.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0px\">&nbsp;However, Indonesia was not included on the list of countries at high risk of deforestation, drawn up by Brussels as envisaged by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/07\/07\/environment-18-countries-including-italy-ask-commission-to-soften-deforestation-regulation\/\">EUDR regulation<\/a>&nbsp; on imported deforestation. Only Russia, Belarus, North Korea, and Myanmar are on the list. Against them, the EU will tighten import controls on products such as beef, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soya, and wood from 30 December 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The trade web embroidered by Brussels to cope with Washington&#8217;s tariffs thickens. Von der Leyen: &#8216;In times of global challenges, partners must strengthen their ties.&#8217; The EU targets raw materials from the Indonesian archipelago, one of the countries with the highest deforestation rate in the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":432320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[31262,26279,31757],"class_list":["post-432344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-trade-en","tag-ue-indonesia-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432345,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432344\/revisions\/432345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}