(SYDNEY) - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd defended his vision for an Asia Pacific Community on Friday after it was attacked by two of his predecessors, playing down its similarities to the European Union (EU).

Rudd floated the idea Tuesday, saying the grouping of countries including China, India, the United States and Japan would enhance regional security and prosperity and could be set up by 2020.

But former prime ministers Paul Keating and Bob Hawke, both members of Rudd's centre-left Labor Party criticised the proposal, saying an EU-style model was inappropriate for Asia.

Hawke, one of the original architects of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, said EU-style integration would not necessarily work in Asia.

"I don't want to knock references to the EU but don't let us say that's the way it must be for Asia," he told the Australian newspaper.

"We can do a hell of a lot without necessarily having the full degree of integration that has occurred with the European Union."

Keating, who followed up Hawke's work by proposing the first APEC leaders' meeting, said countries such as China would be loathe to cede partial sovereignty to an EU-style body.

"It has taken the Chinese 350 years of the modern age to truly recover their sovereignty -- I do not see them sharing much of it with anyone else," he wrote in the Australian.

"And Japan remains one of the most insular, monocultural countries in the world."

Rudd -- who had said "we have something to learn from Europe, where centuries of animosity have been transformed into an unparallelled degree of transnational cooperation" -- backed away from EU comparisons Friday.

He said a common currency such as the euro was "absolutely not" on the agenda for his proposed grouping.

"It's not right to see Europe as some sort of identikit model (for Asia)," Rudd told public radio.

"But we can do better than we are at the present, and to do that you've got to set an ambition and a timeline."

Rudd said his proposal was designed to improve economic, political and security cooperation across the region.

"Right now we don't have any single regional organisation in the Asia Pacific which deals with economic cooperation, political cooperation and security cooperation," he said.

"My concern long term is drift. That is, we don't want to have a drift towards conflict within our region where we still have so many unresolved territorial conflicts."

Text and Picture Copyright 2008 AFP. All other Copyright 2008 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.