EU-Japan relations have evolved a long way over more than 30 years, ranging from stormy acrimony to somnolent normalcy, but never reaching their full potential, a reality seemingly again acknowledged at a Prague summit meeting May 4 that could mark a fresh start.

These relations reached shrill peak of displeasure in the 1970s amidst a sudden emergence of Japanese economic and commerce power, accompanied by a painful European trade deficit that presaged the more recent discomfort experienced with China. One senior European official at the time went so far as to express his wrath in writing, complaining of unfair competition from Japanese workers living in "rabbit hutches."

More effective means of trade crisis management prevailed afterwards and the relationship between these major economic powers evolved into more normal, mature and even routine contacts, despite occasional flareups, such as the outcry in mid-2008 by the former EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson for what he perceived to be Japan's lack of openness to outside investors in certain areas.

In the interval, both sides have nevertheless become a major presence in the other's market, with Japanese auto and other manufacturers carving out a significant but largely-unnoticed stake in the European economy.

For several years, relations were virtually paralysed by the indifference of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his obsession with his partnership with Washington  in his term of office from 2001 to 2006, and since then by a series of weak and ephemeral successors. As a result, and also affected perhaps by the so-called "lost decade" of economic stagnation in Japan, EU-Japan contacts never lived up to their ambitious intentions, as embodied by their Joint Action Plan of 2001.

Even the Japanese Foreign Ministry's daily news feed issued only a cursory duplication of the Prague summit's joint press statement, of much lower profile in historic and diplomatic terms than an official summit declaration, perhaps reflecting the dual lame-duck status of the Japanese Government, the Czech hosts and the EU Commission.

During his muted voyage to Prague and Berlin that obtained hardly any media attention in either Europe or Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso managed to raise regional dipomatic hackles by a declaration of concern about the nuclear weapons threat perceived from North Korea and China, and eyebrows with his reversal of previous criticism of German inaction in the face of the economic and financial crisis to one of praise for Berlin's recovery plans.

The 2009 summit may be remembered best for its effort to get the bilateral relationship on a more logical, appropriate and more positive path. The final declaration maintained the traditional pattern of touching verbally on virtually all items of a large agenda of mututal interests. But the emphasis was on a pledge for joint action to achieve results on the negotiations underway to go beyond the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, an area in which the two might have had considerably more impact on the global scale if they had truly cooperated in the past.

They also looked forward to reviewing and replacing the grandiose 2001 bilateral Action Plan that has been highlighted for being more than a wish-list than a true work schedule, when it expires in 2011.