Bilateral European-Japanese agendas and issues appeared to have been upstaged by Japans broader international and regional concerns when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made the journey to Luxembourg to meet European leaders at the annual EU-Japan Summit on May 2.

Senior Japanese and European officials briefing afterwards dwelt at length especially on the strained relations between Tokyo and Beijing and on Japans desire for membership on the UN Security Council.

Other international concerns such as Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East, terrorism and the Kyoto Protocol were mentioned prominently in their briefings and the documents and statements issued at the Luxembourg summit.

The emphasis to some degree reflected the fact that such strategic issues were being dealt with at the upper levels of the two sides while other more routine issues were constantly being dealt with by other officials, but also perhaps reflected the fact that much of the EU-Japan relationship was in fact business-driven and handled by companies and industries from both sides.

However, Japanese and European officials attending the Luxembourg summit explained that this meeting, while touching on a number of pertinent points, had not engaged in the broad type of strategic discussion envisioned and that later gatherings of experts would be devoted to this. This included the visits of senior EU experts to Tokyo and Washington in April.

Although it was assured at the briefings that such a strategic dialogue was on its way, there was no apparent timetable or framework that it would cover all major aspects in a systematic way, or that it would involve academia and civil society rather than be confined to summits, diplomats and civil servants.

The bilateral issues discussed included such difficult ones as the introduction of new European accounting standards that would affect Japanese companies operating or whose shares were listed on European stock exchanges, the lengthy discussions on the location of a proposed international experimental nuclear facility known as ITER, regulatory cooperation, intellectual property rights, and various elements of the ongoing bilateral Action Plan such as strengthening trade and investment between the two. Another subject was the carrying out of the 2005 Year of People-to-People Exchanges between Japan and the EU which has involved numerous cultural and other contacts between civil society.

Senior officials from both Japan and the EU briefing after the meeting expressed satisfaction with the discussions and the outcome of the talks. One said the atmosphere was friendly, cordial with good back-and-forth discussion on many issues. It was pointed out that Prime Minister Koizumi was the first Japanese Prime Minister to have visited Luxembourg and it was also noted that he and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso were getting to know each other following a couple of other international meetings.

But the briefers and Koizumi apparently spent considerable time explaining the Japanese view of the tensions between Japan and China over a number of issues that led to massive demonstrations and riots in Chinese cities in April against Japanese symbols. The Prime Minister explained his efforts to calm the situation, including his declarations of remorse and apology for World War II and his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Indonesia afterwards.

The Japanese leader was said to have expressed concern to his European hosts about what he said was Chinas expressed readiness to use force in its ongoing debate with Taiwan over the status of the island and the rise in Chinese defence spending. Koizumi in this context also voiced his concern about the EU discussions regarding the possibility of lifting the EUs 16-year embargo on sales of military equipment to China. The EU has been under constant conflicting pressure in recent months from China and members wanting to end the embargo and replace it with a strengthened EU code of conduct on arms sales and from objections from the US and Japan out of their concern on the security balance in the region and the Taiwan Straits. EU Foreign Ministers had subsequently delayed lifting the embargo and agreed to engage in consultations with the US and Japan about the strategic situation in East Asia.

Extensive presentations were also made by Koizumi and other Japanese participants on the broad subject of UN reform and more specifically the desire of Japan to obtain a seat on the UN Security Council. Europe has been deadlocked specifically on the question of Security Council enlargement, largely due to Italian opposition to Germanys desire to also seek a seat on the Council, and has therefore been unable to endorse or support any other such requests. In view of these and other divisions involving enlargement of the Security Council, many efforts at a more general reform of the UN institutions and machinery appear complicated, if not entirely compromised.

On another major international issue, Japan seemed to lend extensive support to the effort of the EU and others to increase assistance to Iraq and said it would attend and engage in a meeting of donor countries on Iraq scheduled in Brussels in June.