EU-Republic of Korea Summit — Joint Press Statement

The Fifth Sum­mit between the Euro­pean Union and the Repub­lic of Korea took place in Brus­sels on 6 Octo­ber 2010. The Euro­pean Union (EU) was rep­re­sent­ed by Mr. Her­man Van Rompuy, Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Coun­cil and Mr. José Manuel Bar­roso, Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. The Repub­lic of Korea (RoK) was rep­re­sent­ed by Pres­i­dent Lee Myung-bak.

The EU and Kore­an lead­ers held a friend­ly, pro­duc­tive and suc­cess­ful Sum­mit. They expressed their sat­is­fac­tion with the pos­i­tive devel­op­ment of the over­all rela­tion­ship, which is based on shared val­ues and com­mon glob­al inter­ests. They warm­ly wel­comed the sig­na­ture of the EU-Korea Free Trade Agree­ment imme­di­ate­ly pri­or to the meet­ing as well as the sig­na­ture of a new Frame­work Agree­ment in May. They her­ald­ed these impor­tant steps for­ward in EU-Korea rela­tions, not­ing that the FTA will bring major ben­e­fits to eco­nom­ic oper­a­tors and to con­sumers, as well as send­ing a strong mes­sage that trade lib­er­al­i­sa­tion is a key ele­ment for the recov­ery of the world econ­o­my. As regards the Frame­work Agree­ment, they not­ed that this will pro­vide a basis for strength­ened EUKo­rea coop­er­a­tion on key glob­al chal­lenges such as cli­mate change and devel­op­ment assis­tance. In line with dis­cus­sions at the fourth Repub­lic of Korea-EU Sum­mit on 23 May 2009, lead­ers agreed to upgrade rela­tions to a strate­gic partnership.

Lead­ers stressed the impor­tance of G20 actions in secur­ing the glob­al eco­nom­ic recov­ery, strength­en­ing finan­cial reg­u­la­tion and super­vi­sion and lay­ing the foun­da­tion for strong, sus­tain­able and bal­anced growth, as well as the present role played by Korea as host of the upcom­ing G20 in Novem­ber 2010. They con­firmed their readi­ness to do their part to achieve the shared objec­tives set out in the G20 Frame­work for Growth. They also agreed on the impor­tance of trade for eco­nom­ic recov­ery, and the need to ensure an urgent con­clu­sion of the WTO Doha Devel­op­ment Agen­da. Lead­ers stressed the need for polit­i­cal lead­er­ship in reach­ing an ambi­tious, bal­anced and com­pre­hen­sive out­come, based on the progress already made. 

Lead­ers stressed that both the EU and the Repub­lic of Korea will keep pur­su­ing a high lev­el of ambi­tion to tack­le cli­mate change chal­lenges by striv­ing for a reduc­tion of green house gas emis­sions com­men­su­rate with their lev­el of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and pur­sue low car­bon green growth and become low car­bon economies. They agreed that adap­ta­tion to and mit­i­ga­tion of cli­mate change remains a key glob­al chal­lenge, and will require sup­port­ive ener­gy poli­cies. Lead­ers stressed the impor­tance of mar­ket based mech­a­nisms to achieve emis­sion reduc­tions and not­ed that the EU’s expe­ri­ences with emis­sions trad­ing scheme is a use­ful exam­ple in this respect. Coop­er­a­tion should focus on financ­ing mech­a­nisms as well as on sup­port to green growth and clean devel­op­ment in third coun­tries. Inte­grat­ing the agree­ments con­tained in the Copen­hagen Accord into the UNFCCC nego­ti­at­ing texts will be crit­i­cal to advance the nego­ti­a­tion for the Unit­ed Nations Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence at the end of 2010.

The lead­ers reaf­firmed the impor­tance of strength­en­ing the mul­ti­lat­er­al Treaty sys­tem on non-pro­lif­er­a­tion and dis­ar­ma­ment. They wel­comed the suc­cess­ful out­come of the 2010 Review Con­fer­ence of the Treaty on the Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion of Nuclear Weapons. The EU and the ROK expressed their deep con­cern over the Iran­ian nuclear pro­gramme and under­lined the need for all coun­tries to ful­ly imple­ment Unit­ed Nations Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 1929 with a view to find­ing a nego­ti­at­ed solu­tion. The two sides will work togeth­er to ensure suc­cess of the Nuclear Secu­ri­ty Sum­mit which the RoK will host in 2012.

Lead­ers dis­cussed the sit­u­a­tion on the Kore­an Penin­su­la. Both the EU and the RoK acknowl­edge the State­ment by High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cather­ine Ash­ton of 20 May, and align them­selves with the unan­i­mous UNSC Pres­i­den­tial State­ment of 9 July con­demn­ing the attack which led to the sink­ing of the ‘Cheo­nan’ and under­scor­ing the impor­tance of pre­vent­ing fur­ther such attacks or hos­til­i­ties against the RoK or in the region. The lead­ers con­sid­er the DPRK’s nuclear weapons and mis­sile pro­grammes a seri­ous threat to region­al and glob­al peace and secu­ri­ty, and con­tin­ue to urge the DPRK to com­ply with its inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions in par­tic­u­lar, by aban­don­ing all nuclear weapons and exist­ing nuclear pro­grams in a com­plete, ver­i­fi­able, and irre­versible man­ner in accor­dance with rel­e­vant UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil res­o­lu­tions. They reit­er­at­ed sup­port for the Six-Par­ty Talks as a viable frame­work for the peace­ful and com­pre­hen­sive res­o­lu­tion of the North Kore­an nuclear issue and under­lined the impor­tance of the full imple­men­ta­tion of rel­e­vant UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil res­o­lu­tions. Lead­ers called for con­struc­tive and sin­cere inter-Kore­an dia­logue as an essen­tial ele­ment in build­ing peace and sta­bil­i­ty on the Kore­an Penin­su­la. The RoK and the EU also wel­comed the out­come of the ASEM 8 Sum­mit and recog­nised the impor­tance of the ASEM process. 

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union 

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