The Philippines has agreed to establish a formal security and defense dialogue with the European Union in order to tackle a host of emerging threats, the country’s foreign minister said yesterday.
Speaking after a meeting with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, in Taguig City, Enrique Manalo said that the new mechanism was aimed at fortifying cooperation between the two parties against a backdrop of increased global geopolitical turbulence.
“We hope that through the security and defense dialogue we will remain proactive and united in addressing emerging security threats that transcend borders, cyber attacks and foreign interference and manipulation of information,” Manalo said in a joint press conference with Kallas in Taguig City, Reuters reported.
According to the official transcript of her comments, Kallas described the proposed dialogue as “a dedicated platform through which we can deepen our cooperation, exchange expertise on security and defense and explore joint initiatives that contribute to the regional as well as global security.” She said that it would “include maritime security, cybersecurity, foreign information manipulation and interference, counterterrorism, crisis response, and more.”
The inaugural meeting of a Dialogue is tentatively set to take place in the last quarter of 2025, the two sides said in a press release.
The dialogue will be part of the EU-Philippines Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA), which created a “new and enhanced legal framework” that would enable the EU and the Philippines “to strengthen their bilateral relationship, in particular on political, social, and economic matters.”
This new mechanism between Manila and Brussels is a clear response to the growing geopolitical turbulence that has occurred since the signing of the EPCA. The agreement, which was signed in 2012 and came into effect in March 2018, addressed issues such as terrorism, the illicit arms and drug trades, money laundering, and organized crime and corruption, but did not directly address the growing geopolitical frictions.
Since then, the world has changed considerably. China has become much more assertive, both internationally and in its own neighborhood, while Europe has been shaken by Russia’s recent assertiveness, both in its 2014 interventions in Ukraine and the full-scale invasion of the country in early 2022.
Over the past three years, China and the Philippines have engaged in numerous standoffs over disputed shoals and islands, many of them inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone. Some of these have escalated into confrontations that have seen Philippine vessels rammed and doused with high-pressure water cannons. In a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue security conference in Singapore last weekend, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Jr. said that a “deficit of trust” was preventing the Philippines and China from resolving their disputes.
“China has a lot of trust-building to do to be an effective negotiating partner in dispute settlement,” he said. “We have to call a spade a spade… And that’s the biggest stumbling block in dispute resolution or dialogue with China, the deficit of trust.”
In her remarks yesterday, Kallas said that the EU and Philippines “share a commitment to upholding the rules-based international order, to promoting peace and stability and to addressing common challenges together. These include the developments in the South China Sea and Russia’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine.” She added later that “we reject any unilateral changes to the status quo, including use of coercion.”
The strengthened security ties with the EU are part of Manila’s strategy of seeking out the support of allies and partners in its disputes with China, which share a commitment to the fraying “rules-based order.” Most particularly, this has involved a sharp uptick in security cooperation with the United States, the Philippines’ long-standing ally, which has involved fortified joint exercises and improved access for the U.S. Army to military facilities in the Philippines.