The EU and Japan Acting together for Global Peace and Prosperity

22nd EU-Japan Summit, Joint Press Statement, Brussels, 7 May 2014:

Mr Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, Mr José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission, and Mr Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan met in Brussels on 7 May 2014 for the 22nd Summit between the European Union (EU) and Japan, and issued the following joint statement.

1. We, the leaders of the European Union and Japan, met today in Brussels to build on our existing, excellent cooperation and enhance our partnership. Our strong, longstanding and dynamic relationship is founded on the common values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and shared principles such as open markets and a rules-based international system.

BILATERAL RELATIONS

2. Building on these common values and shared principles, we seek to expand and strengthen our wider partnership and to face together evolving global challenges. Recalling the longstanding strategic partnership between the EU and Japan, we reaffirm our commitment to concluding a Strategic Partnership Agreement with a comprehensive coverage as a sound structure for deeper political, global and sectoral cooperation over the coming decades. To fulfil this commitment, we task negotiators to maintain ambition and to complete the negotiations as rapidly as possible.

3. We reaffirm the importance of strengthening the trade and economic relationship between the EU and Japan, and of the early conclusion of a highly comprehensive and ambitious Free Trade Agreement (FTA)/ Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) which would play a vital role in this regard, notably by addressing issues related to market access for goods, services and investment, procurement, including railways, and non-tariff measures. We welcome the fact that market access offers have been exchanged on trade in goods, and that steady progress has been made in other areas as well. We reiterated our commitment to a rapid exchange of ambitious market access offers on procurement and on trade in services and investment.

4. We welcome recent signs of improvement in the global economy, in particular reviving growth in the EU and the Euro area and continued growth in Japan. We acknowledge progress on key EU economic policy priorities, namely, implementing structural reforms aimed at fostering competitiveness, growth and jobs and strengthening the Economic and Monetary Union. We note the achievements of "Abenomics", the economic policies of the Abe Administration, and have exchanged views on the outlook for the Japanese economy in view of a reinforced Growth Strategy, aimed inter alia at bold regulatory and structural reform.

5. We recognise the active and continued contribution of the EU-Japan Business Round Table (BRT) to further development of bilateral economic relationship, and reaffirm our determination to promote cooperation with the business communities on both sides, notably through the BRT, in order to strengthen relations further with the intention of addressing a wide variety of global challenges. We welcome the recommendations adopted by the BRT in April that “reiterate its calls that the EU and Japanese Authorities should step up their efforts to tackle and resolve the substance of the outstanding issues”, which should include tariffs, non-tariff measures, procurement, investment, services, competition, intellectual property rights, geographical indications and regulatory cooperation, “and that a comprehensive, ambitious, high-level and mutually beneficial FTA/EPA should be concluded as soon as possible”. We are also strongly encouraged by the BRT’s commitment to make every effort to support the early realisation of an EU-Japan FTA/EPA.

6. We highly value the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) as a forum for dialogue and cooperation between the countries of Asia and Europe. We look forward to addressing, with other ASEM members, issues of common interest at the 10th ASEM Summit on 16-17 October in Milan, under the title: 'Responsible Partnership for Sustainable Growth and Security'.

7. We have reviewed, and are satisfied about the good progress made in, sectoral dialogue and cooperation. This includes the following areas:..........http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-14-151_en.htm?locale=en
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