ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

ASEAN Summit to Proceed in May, but Preparatory Meetings Will Be Shifted Online

The economic ramifications of the war in Iran are likely to dominate the May 8-9 ASEAN Leaders’ Summit in Cebu.

Southeast Asian officials attend the 32nd ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Retreat in Taguig, Philippines, Mar. 13, 2026.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will hold its next summit as planned in May, but will shift a large proportion of its preparatory meetings online in order to conserve energy amid the ongoing war in the Middle East.

In light of the disruption of energy supplies, the Philippines, the bloc’s current chair, said that it is scaling down non-essential activities “in order to save on expenses and focus on the most important,” Executive Secretary Ralph G. Recto said on Friday. As part of this downsizing, approximately 650 pre-summit meetings will be shifted to a virtual format.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told reporters that he had consulted with his ASEAN counterparts and reached a ‌consensus ⁠to proceed with the in-person May summit, but that the upcoming meetings would be “very bare bones.”

“The question that we – that I asked them is very simple. Would you like – would you prefer, because everybody is busy with the oil crisis that’s going on because of the war in the Middle East, would you like to postpone the ASEAN Summit? The consensus that we came to is that it is precisely now that we must coordinate our efforts,” Marcos told reporters.

“So, that is what we are going to do. We will push through with the ASEAN Summit, but the way that we described it is that we have – it is a bare bones ASEAN Summit.”

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran in February has prompted Tehran to obstruct most traffic through the........

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