Pengaruh Implementasi Kesepakatan Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Voluntary Partnership Agreements (FLEGT VPA) terhadap Kebijakan Penggunaan Sistem Verifikasi dan Legalitas Kayu (SVLK) pada Ekspor Kayu dan Produk Kayu Indonesia ke Uni Eropa [The Effect of Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Voluntary Partnership Agreements (FLEGT VPA) on the Policy of Using the Timber Verification and Legality System (SVLK) on Export of Indonesian Timber and Wood Products to the European Union]

Abstract

As an entity with economic and political power, the European Union has made agreements with developing countries such as Indonesia. One of the voluntary partnership agreements is called Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT). Recently, however, some aspects of FLEGT in particular, and Indonesia-EU economic relations as a whole, indicate a gap is widening between both parties. Indonesia had changed and revised a few of its national regulations in order to adjust to demands from the EU regarding the FLEGT. These  adjustments were not inline with President Joko Widodo’s regulations on deregulation and debureaucratization. This article will examine the political dimensions of the implications of Indonesia-EU economic agreements and how this affects bilateral relations. This article will also discuss how the EU as a core and Indonesia as a semi-periphery country have had a binding dependency relation. The power of the EU will be greater if it can ‘conquer’ Indonesia to create a bigger ASEAN market; however, in terms of the political dimension, the EU might want to spread its impact not only to the Southeast Asia region but also towards Asia as a whole.