Relations between the European Union and Japan

The European Union and Japan have close political and economic ties. The industrialized state of Japan is a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); Japan and the four large members of the EU belong to the Group of Seven (G7) , to which the European Commission has observer status.

history

The Second World War had caused immeasurable human suffering in Europe and in the Pacific region and also brought severe material destruction. In addition, the entire world trade was subjected to the dictates of war. The new Franco-German understanding ( Schuman Plan , Mining Union ) made the process of European integration possible for post-war Europe. Japan was the last loser of the war (September 2, 1945) and had to bury its plans for a " Greater East Asian Prosperity Sphere ".

In the times of the East-West conflict , Japan, like the states of the European Union (EU), was seen as part of the Western world . Japan's closer relations with the EEC (which developed into the EC and then the EU) have only existed since 1959, when Japan sent a representative to what was then the European Community (EEC) for the first time . In 1974 an EC delegation was sent to Tokyo in return.

Since 1991 there has been an annual summit between the EU and Japan, initially held in The Hague , but now it takes place alternately in Brussels (seat of the most important EU institutions) and Tokyo (Japanese capital). Representatives of the European Council , the EU Commission and the Japanese government take part in these summits .

In 1992 the EU-Japan Festival was founded for cultural exchange between Japan and the respective European Capital of Culture .

In 2001 the action plan "Shaping our common future" was signed, which aims to strengthen economic relations, closer cooperation in security policy, overcoming global and societal challenges and bringing people and cultures together. In 2006 an agreement on the peaceful use of the Nuclear power closed.

Current

The EU and Japan have been negotiating a free trade agreement since 2013; the current European representative in the negotiations is EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström .

Japan is one of the European Union's ten strategic partners in the Asia-Pacific region and, according to the European External Action Service, a like-minded ally.

Economic relationships

Japan is currently the EU's seventh largest trading partner, and the EU is Japan's third largest trading partner. The European Union shows a trade deficit of around € 14 billion in 2011. In total, goods and services worth € 154.2 billion were exchanged in 2011, according to data from the European statistical authority Eurostat .

The trade volume between the two economic blocs has stagnated in relative terms since 2004, as shown in the table below. (in billion €)

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
EU exports	60.4	62.9	63.8	63.9	62.7	53.7	63.9	70.1
EU imports	82.0	84.3	88.3	90.3	91.6	70.0	81.7	84.1
EU balance	−21.6	−21.4	−24.5	−26.4	−28.9	−16.4	−17.8	−14.0

literature

Atsuke Abe: Japan and the European Union: Domestic Politics and Transnational Relations. Athlone Press, London, New Brunswick 1999, ISBN 0-485-11556-5 .
Elena Atanassova-Cornelis: The EU-Japan Strategic Partnership in the 21st Century. Motivations, constraints and practice. In: Journal of Contemporary European Research. Volume 6, 2010, Issue 4, ISSN 1815-347X , pp. 47-495 ( online ).
Axel Berkofsky: The EU and Japan: A Partnership in the Making. (= EPC Issue Papers. 52). In: Europe and Asia. February 2007, ISSN 1782-494X , pp. 1-31 ( download ).
Julie Gilson: Japan and the European Union: A Partnership for the Twenty-First Century? Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire 2000, ISBN 0-333-76488-9 .
Olena Mykal: The EU-Japan Security Dialogue. Invisible but comprehensive. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2011, ISBN 978-90-8964-163-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee. Retrieved June 26, 2015.
↑ European Union: EU-Japan factsheet . Retrieved June 26, 2015.
↑ Trade barriers between Europe and Japan ( Memento of the original from April 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , JPG @1@ 2

[1] EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee. Retrieved June 26, 2015.

[2] European Union: EU-Japan factsheet . Retrieved June 26, 2015.

[3] Trade barriers between Europe and Japan ( Memento of the original from April 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , JPG @1@ 2