The initiative of our colleague Professor Olivia Tambou is remarkable for two reasons.

On the one hand, she has been able to bring one of the world’s most important trade agreements to light after its entry into force. However, in 2019, the Economic Partnership Agreement between the European Union and Japan went relatively unnoticed in the mainstream media and the public opinion. The agreement with Canada and, more recently, Mercosur or Mexico have received a lot of attention and protestations from them. A return to this agreement between East and West — Levant and Couchant — therefore seemed most opportune.

On the other hand, she was able to gather around her and for the occasion great specialists on this topic, notably Japanese colleagues whom we are pleased to read, in an original and high-quality format on her blog dedicated to European law. We would like to take advantage of these few lines of conclusions to thank our colleague Olivia very warmly and sincerely.

Conclude this series of excellent contributions is not an easy task. It is important to avoid repetition and to try to propose some timely avenues of analysis for further “brain storming”.

This Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) raises a number of questions which, from the point of view of the law of the European Union’s external agreements or the general problem of its external competences, illustrate this new bilateral trend which the EU now favours in its trade policy. What is at issue here, as we know, is the question – not to say the concept – of new generation agreements, which deserve special attention and of which the EPA is a perfect example. In any event, the links now established between the European Union and Japan will have the virtue, beyond the purely commercial aspects, of bringing our two « worlds » closer together, which undoubtedly have a great deal in common and which deserve to be deepened. Thus, we will affirm or recall, through a historical mirror game, that if Nintendo owes its worldwide success to two Europeans (I), it is because the mother of Europe is undoubtedly Japanese (II).

Download the full paper HERE

Pierre-Yves Monjal : Professor PhD of Public Law — University of Tours, Jean-Monnet Chair, Director of the NihonEuropA programme, Vice-Director of the IRJI – EA 7496

This e-conference was organised by Yumiko Nakanishi, Professor of European Union Law at the Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, and Dr. Olivia Tambou, Associate Professor at the University of Paris-Dauphine, Editor of Blogdroiteuropeen. Special thanks to both Dr. Edoardo Stopionni and Dr. Alessandra Donati, senior research fellows at the Max Planck Institute of Luxembourg and members of the blogdroiteuropeen team, for their contribution to the organisation of the e-conference.

For more information on the context of this e-conference and the other papers see here