NUSA DUA, Indonesia -- An international grouping which strives for a balanced relationship between Europe and Asia will have a distinctly unbalanced look at a meeting starting here Saturday.

While most of the 10 Asian member states will send full ministers to the fifth ASEM finance ministers' meeting, only Austria among the 15 European Union states will send a minister, organizers told AFP.

Deputy ministers or senior officials will fill in for the missing European ministers.

"This is unfortunate," said a European Union (EU) diplomat, speaking of the low-level representation from his side. "The Asian side has complained in the past that Europeans have not always been represented at an adequate level."

He said the Bali meeting coincides with a meeting called by the Finance Ministry of Italy, which has just assumed the EU presidency. The diplomat said the important test for ASEM (the Asia Europe Meeting) would be a get-together of its foreign ministers in Bali on July 23-24. "If the participation of Europe is not what we expect, there could be some complaints."

The ASEM process began in 1996. Its origins, according to the ASEM webpage, "lay in a mutual recognition ... that the relations between our two regions needed to be strengthened, to reflect the increased importance of Asia on the world stage, and to move away from an 'aid and trade' relationship towards a more balanced relationship based on equal partnership."