19th EU-Japan Summit Tokyo

19th EU-Japan Sum­mit Tokyo,
28 April 2010
Joint Press Statement 

• Japan – EU coop­er­a­tion in Afghanistan
• Bilat­er­al cooperation
• Coop­er­a­tion on glob­al issues
• Coop­er­a­tion on region­al issues

Mr Yukio Hatoya­ma, Prime Min­is­ter of Japan, Mr Her­man Van Rompuy, Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Coun­cil, and Mr José Manuel Bar­roso, Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, met in Tokyo on 28 April 2010 for the 19th Sum­mit between Japan and the Euro­pean Union (EU). Mr Kat­suya Oka­da, For­eign Min­is­ter of Japan, Mr Masayu­ki Naoshi­ma, Min­is­ter of Econ­o­my, Trade and Indus­try of Japan, Baroness Cather­ine Ash­ton, High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the EU for For­eign Affairs and Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy, and Mr Karel De Gucht, Euro­pean Com­mis­sion­er for Trade, also attend­ed the Sum­mit to assist their leaders.

As well as dis­cussing Japan-EU bilat­er­al rela­tions, Sum­mit lead­ers exchanged views on a num­ber of key inter­na­tion­al ques­tions. At the con­clu­sion of the Sum­mit, the lead­ers con­curred that the dis­cus­sions had been use­ful for chart­ing a path for the future strength­en­ing of the rela­tion­ship. Sum­mit lead­ers not­ed with sat­is­fac­tion that they had been able to firm up Japan-EU com­mon posi­tions on impor­tant glob­al and region­al chal­lenges fac­ing the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. In a num­ber of areas, they were able to iden­ti­fy con­crete short-term coop­er­a­tion priorities.

The main points emerg­ing from the Sum­mit are sum­marised below. Fur­ther details are con­tained in the Annex.

Year of renew­al: towards a more action-ori­ent­ed partnership

1. Sum­mit lead­ers reaf­firmed their strong con­vic­tion that Japan and the EU are unit­ed by a shared com­mit­ment to fun­da­men­tal val­ues and prin­ci­ples, in par­tic­u­lar, democ­ra­cy, the rule of law and human rights. They are both also deeply com­mit­ted to the mar­ket-based econ­o­my and to sus­tain­able development.

2. Sum­mit lead­ers recog­nised that 2010 is a year of renew­al. Japan expe­ri­enced a polit­i­cal renew­al with its change of gov­ern­ment in Sep­tem­ber 2009. With the entry into force of the Lis­bon Treaty the EU has engaged in insti­tu­tion­al renew­al. They shared the view that this pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to renew the Japan-EU rela­tion­ship, to take it to a high­er lev­el and to strength­en cooperation.

3. Sum­mit lead­ers wel­comed the progress in devel­op­ing Japan-EU rela­tions since the last Sum­mit. They under­lined the poten­tial of the rela­tion­ship and stressed that there is much more to be done between Japan and the EU. Sum­mit lead­ers stressed that Japan and the EU – as like-mind­ed glob­al part­ners and major economies – should sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly aim to work more close­ly togeth­er, both bilat­er­al­ly and glob­al­ly. They called for future Japan-EU coop­er­a­tion to focus on devel­op­ing and pro­mot­ing com­mon posi­tions and on joint projects aim­ing at con­crete results.

4. Sum­mit lead­ers decid­ed to estab­lish a joint High-Lev­el Group to iden­ti­fy options for the com­pre­hen­sive strength­en­ing of all aspects of Japan-EU rela­tions and defin­ing the frame­work for imple­ment­ing it, build­ing on the expe­ri­ence of the Joint Dec­la­ra­tion of 1991 and the Action Plan of 2001.

5. In this con­text, the joint High-Lev­el Group will con­duct a joint exam­i­na­tion of the ways to com­pre­hen­sive­ly strength­en and inte­grate the Japan-EU eco­nom­ic rela­tion­ship address­ing all issues of inter­est to both sides includ­ing, for instance, all tar­iffs, non-tar­iff mea­sures, ser­vices, invest­ment in ser­vices and non-ser­vices sec­tors, Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Rights and gov­ern­ment procurement.

6. At the Sum­mit meet­ing in 2011, Sum­mit lead­ers will decide on any appro­pri­ate next steps based on the out­come and the options for the fur­ther strength­en­ing of Japan-EU polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic rela­tions iden­ti­fied by the joint High-Lev­el Group.

Oth­er con­crete Japan-EU ini­tia­tives iden­ti­fied at the Summit

7. Sum­mit lead­ers have iden­ti­fied the fol­low­ing ini­tia­tives which are con­crete exam­ples of the more action-ori­ent­ed man­ner in which they wish to see Japan-EU coop­er­a­tion devel­op in the future.