Is SAARC equally good as the European Union?
Bianca: I can understand, that a comparison of SAARC and EU sounds attractive anyway. But the evolution of European Union differs in some major background conditions: First of all, the EU is not only a forum for socio-economic exchange. It also provides window of opportunity for a political partnership of European States which came into practice after a long process of social learning. The original idea of a trade union could also be realized because of the awareness that the European States belonged to the same region, whereas it seems that it’s still a long way to create a strong awareness such as a South Asian identity although tourism, film festivals, youth exchange, and multi-track conferences and social dialogues are trying to foster it. The important factor for economic exchange in Europe, however, was that the gap between the national economies of the member-states of the EU was not as large as in South Asia and regional integration was easier to realize. The intra-regional exc
