EU, South Korea upgrade research

March 09, 2020 / By mobanmarket

EU, South Korea upgrade research

South Korea and EU ‘put flesh on bones’ of relationship with efforts to bolster research co-operation.

South Korea and the European Union today moved to follow up a landmark free-trade agreement by deepening and extending their co-operation in the area of research and innovation.

The free-trade agreement that the two sides agreed in 2011 remains the deepest and most extensive trade deal struck by the EU in Asia, and is serving as a point of reference in the EU’s current talks to liberalise trade with an even larger Asian economy, Japan.

The EU calculates that trade liberalisation has contributed to a 24% rise in exports and to the European Union’s emergence as the largest investor in South Korea. One of the summit’s hosts, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, credited South Korea’s visiting president, Park Geun-hye, with playing a pivotal role in the early stages of the trade negotiations, in her role as a special envoy for her predecessor as president, Lee Myung-bak.

Concerns about implementation of the agreement persist. Though European exports of cars have increased, European carmakers remain critical, while Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for trade, said in October that the EU was “very concerned indeed” about how Seoul has implemented the agreement on financial services. The free-trade agreement, which came into force in mid-2011, ends a ban on the transfer of most financial data outside South Korea. Seoul now makes transfers possible, but said that the rules were “too vague”.

While both sides described the trade deal as “the driving force for our co-operation”, the focus of the summit that Barroso described as putting “flesh on the bones” of the relationship was on increasing co-operation in other areas, including research. Increased attention to research was presented as a dovetailing of economic strategies. Barroso described South Korea’s emphasis on a “creative economy” and EU’s “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” strategy as “complementary concepts”.

The two sides said that their universities and research institutions would increase doctoral and university exchanges and the number of degrees issued jointly by Korean and European institutions.

Computing, telecoms, nanotechnology, space technology and energy emerged from the summit as business areas of particular interest to both sides. One fruit of these shared interests will be a new ‘research and innovation centre’ in Brussels.

The unusually developed nature of ties between the EU and South Korea – South Korea “was the first G20 country with which we concluded a framework agreement” for all areas of relations with the EU, Barroso noted – was underscored by references to South Korea’s co-operation with the EU in two areas where the EU has led the international community’s response to crises, in Mali and in Somalia. As well as providing money to help Mali’s reconstruction, South Korea has contributed funding to an international training centre in Djibouti championed by the EU whose purpose is to train coastguards and other maritime agencies in the Horn of Africa.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, was not at the summit. She was, instead, in Geneva to lead talks on what are emerging as potentially historic talks on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Since taking up office in February, Park has initiated a set of confidence-building measures with North Korea, in an approach that partially draws on the experience of the Cold War Helsinki process, which sought to introduce human-rights issues into relations between the West and the Soviet bloc. Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council’s president, added their voice of support to what they described as South Korea’s “trust politik” not just towards North Korea, but also to its neighbours China and Japan.

Park’s decision to visit the EU during her first year in office is seen in the EU as a sign of unusual interest in relations with the EU.