Reassessing Eu-Japan Strategic Partnership: Eu’S Engagement In Asian Security And Japan’S Proactive Pacifism

CEU and Japan have been constantly updating their cooperation through joint declarations and summits. Yet, in spite of the fact that this year they will finally conclude an economic agreement and a strategic partnership, the cooperation is restricted to non-military sectors. Thus, a particular attention is given to economic cooperation and promotion of a non-proliferation regime, while both actors are refraining from extending their cooperation at a military level. Taking into account EU’s global strategy and its overall normative power projection, as well as Japan‘s redefined proactive pacifist stance, the aim of this research is to explore these sectors of cooperation and to find explanations for the limits. Therefore, the paper will focus, on the one hand, on the firmly institutionalized bilateral cooperation between EU and Japan, mostly based on economic and political agreements. On the other hand, the paper will analyse the relations between EU member states and Japan and will show that these arrangements are far more comprehensive and are focusing more on military aspects of security than the ones concluded between the EU institutions and Japanese government.