Indonesia doesn’t need Europe anymore, presidential frontrunner says

Indonesia’s leading candidate for president has said the country doesn’t "really need Europe anymore," criticizing the bloc’s ban on some Indonesian imports and suggesting his country should align itself more closely with other nations in Asia.

"We open our market to you, but you won’t allow us to sell palm oil, and now we have problems trying to sell coffee, tea, cocoa," Prabowo Subianto, who currently serves as Indonesia’s defense minister, said Monday at a forum organized by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.

In April, the EU banned imports of some Indonesian products, including soy, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, timber, rubber and beef over links to deforestation. Indonesia is home to a third of the world’s rainforests but has seen much of it vanish due to deforestation, of which palm oil plantations are a major driver.

Indonesia’s chief economic minister previously accused the EU of "regulatory imperialism" over the import ban.

Subianto — who is leading in the polls ahead of Indonesia’s next presidential election in February — also said Europe was in danger of becoming less of a leader on human rights.

“I grew up in Europe. I maybe know European history better than Europeans. What I’m afraid of is that Europe will lose [its] moral leadership,” he said, adding that countries in the West have "double standards."

"The West teaches us democracy, human rights … but the West has different standards and this will be very critical. There’s a shift in the world. Now we don’t really need Europe any more," he said.

Indonesia was better off learning "from other countries in the East such as Japan, [South] Korea, China and India,” he added.

The comments come ahead of the next round of talks between the EU and Indonesia to hammer out a free trade agreement, which are slated for the first week of December.