BANGKOK A meeting of the European Union and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Laos next week will be attended by 14 foreign ministers, but only four of them will come from Europe, Thailand said on Wednesday.

All 10 ASEAN foreign ministers would attend the two-day annual meeting in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, the Thai Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The European foreign ministers would come from Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Finland, it said.

In addition, France and the Netherlands would be represented by other unidentified ministers, while Britain, Italy, Sweden, Portugal, Greece and Ireland would be represented by deputy foreign ministers.

The meeting, last held in Singapore in 1997, would discuss international politics and economics and include informal discussion among the member countries on the future of ASEAN and EU relations, it said.

The statement said many European foreign ministers would not be able to attend the meeting because they were busy with the European Union Summit in the southern French city of Nice, which is due to start on Thursday.

Political analysts have speculated that the Europe-ASEAN meeting might be scrapped due to a profound disagreement over the presence at the talks of Myanmar, which was admitted to ASEAN in 1997.

The European Union considers Myanmar a rogue nation with a very poor record on human rights and objects to its treatment of its pro-democracy opposition, led by 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

ASEAN traditionally has a policy of non-interference in what it calls the internal affairs of its members, although some of ASEAN's members, including Thailand, have criticized this policy.

Malaysia had been reported to be considering downgrading its presence at the Vientiane meeting in protest against a perceived snub by the European politicians.

But the Thai statement said the meeting would go ahead and said all ASEAN nations, including Malaysia, would send their foreign ministers.

(Reuter)