Japan-EU relations after EU enlargement

摘要

In 1991 the EU, then the EC, and Japan held their first Summit meeting in the Netherlands at which they issued what became known as The Hague Declaration. This was the first attempt to establish the objectives and framework for political dialogue between the EU and Japan and to build a comprehensive relationship between the two partners, long dominated mainly by economics or trade disputes. In 1985 Marlis Steinert came to the conclusion "The main reasons for the uneasy Japan-EC relationship are mostly structural and therefore difficult to eliminate. First, the relationship is primarily economic."3 Similarly, Reinhard Drifte had argued back in 1985 that "[t]he most pressing issue in the Euro-Japanese relationship is still the trade problem, or more precisely, the damage to major European industrial branches, which has contributed to the high unemployment rate. A serious approach to this problem is not only in the Euro-Japanese interest but also crucial for the survival of the European Community and the continued growth of world trade."4 One could argue that today the lack of commercial disputes between the EU and Japan and the perceived lack of an autonomous Japanese foreign policy, aggravated by more than a decade of economic problems, contribute to a diminishing interest in Japan by Europe.