Foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) started talks on integration mechanisms and increasing cooperation in the economy, politics and security here Wednesday. The EU-ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting is expected to conclude with the signing of the Madrid Declaration, establishing future targets for bilateral cooperation and reviewing progress on the Nuremberg Action Plan, signed by both blocs in 2007, and the Phom Penh Meeting (Cambodia), held in May 2009. This year sees the 30th anniversary of the signing of the 1980 Cooperation Agreement between the EU and ASEAN that opened the door for economic and political exchanges. Founded in 1967, ASEAN is a regional cooperation group that now covers a total of 4.5 million square km and a total population of 576 million as of 2007. It has a combined gross national product of almost 3,000 billion U.S. dollars. The EU is an economic and political union of 27 member countries that have a population of nearly half a billion. Now one of the most developed regional cooperation group, it has expanded several times since the founding of a coal and steel community after World War II. 