BRT and EU-Japan Business-to-Government discussions

Engagement with the EU and Japanese Authorities is an important part of the BRT’s work. In early 2024, the EU and Japanese Authorities invited the BRT to take part in two stakeholder events linked to formal government-to-government level dialogues.

21/02/2024 – event linked to the EU-Japan Industrial Policy Dialogue (IPD)

The BRT took part in an EU-Japan Business-to-Government (B2G) meeting entitled “Identifying concrete opportunities for EU-Japan industrial cooperation in a new geopolitical era” and held on the fringes of the annual EU-Japan Industrial Policy Dialogue (or "IPD") led by DG GROW and METI. After METI and DG GROW presented the key conclusions of the IPD, the BRT co-Chair companies (NEC and Merck) shared their views on how best to structure joint engagement with business and how the private sector can support the design of new public-private partnerships. Topics raised during the meeting included supply chain resilience, connectivity, the need for a high level of trust in the market, the importance of having a clear and predictable regulatory environment with regulations that promote competition while ensuring safety. The second part of the meeting focused on EU-Japan cooperation in cleantech.

NEC's Dr Endo (Chair of the BRT's Japan-side) welcomed the Authorities' decision to invite industry to take part in the discussion seeing it as a proof of the strong trust between Japan and the EU which promotes a high-value co-creation that individual countries or companies could not achieve alone. Thanks to this trust, Japanese and EU companies have been establishing a mutually beneficial vice versa business relationship, which leads to a robust supply chain. Ensuring the resilience of supply chains is a key aspect of economic security and a focus for the Japan-EU relationship for the coming years as countries seek to balance self-sufficiency and enhance cross-border supply chain resilience whilst strengthening high value global value chains that focus on raw materials, semiconductors, technology, and data to increase their contribution to human society. Advanced technologies can reduce environmental impact and drive sustainable growth. To achieve carbon neutrality through the green transformation, cutting edge technologies in areas such as power generation, consumption or grids that take account of each country’s own energy situation and national globally optimised solutions are needed. These are all issues that the BRT will continue to address.

Merck’s Chris Thomas (Vice-Chair of the BRT's EU-side) underlined that having a regular B2G dialogue is key and that the BRT's objective is ensuring that policies are well informed by industry insights and address clear challenges faced by society. To boost investment and innovation, regulatory frameworks should be clear and predictable and have a strong Intellectual Property mechanism. Regulations should be transparent and promote competition while ensuring consumer protection and environmental sustainability and that the EU and Japan should pursue negotiating trade agreements, reducing trade barriers, and promoting exports building on the success of their EU-Japan EPA.

In a LinkedIn post, Kerstin Jorna (Director General of DG GROW) who led the IPD meeting for the Commission explained that the EU and Japanese Authorities, "care about economic security, sustainable and resilient supply chains. And the business case underlying them. That is why we also exchanged with companies from Europe and Japan. Where are the opportunities and where are the challenges? A most useful conversation. Which will be continued!"
 

17/04/2024 – Event linked to the Japan-EU Digital Partnership Council

On 17 April, by way of preparation for the 2nd Japan-EU Digital Partnership Council that took place on 30 April, DG CNECT and Japan’s Digital Agency organised a Public-Private Stakeholder Workshop. Fabio Crisafulli from Dassault Systèmes represented the BRT and took part in an overarching session entitled, “The EU-Japan Digital Partnership – Stakeholders’ View”.

During his intervention, Mr Crisafulli shared some of BRT WP3’s key recommendations from 2023:

• EU-Japan policy coordination across digitalisation, environmental sustainability and economic security is essential and should include engagement with stakeholders. The EU and Japan should advocate free trade and multilateralism, emphasise high standards like cross-border data flows, collaborate on WTO e-commerce rules and advance a global digital trade agenda. They should harmonise cybersecurity standards, lead in quantum computer age security, and promote mutual adoption of technologies. On supply chain resilience: the EU and Japanese Authorities should actively participate in the semiconductor value chain, fostering cooperation in chip manufacturing, and collaborating on sourcing critical minerals while promoting supply chain resilience. Mr Crisafulli welcomed the EU-Japan Enhanced Dialogue on Advanced Materials as a key enabler for technological innovation. The BRT is ready to engage with the Authorities and to support EU-Japan action on advanced materials.
• On skills development for the digital economy: “The BRT urges the EU and Japanese Authorities to invest in raising awareness and educating all generations on digital transformation, including cybersecurity, AI, robotics, metaverse, and blockchain, while supporting skills development for emerging job opportunities. The BRT emphasises the importance of fostering digitalisation among SMEs to enhance their participation in the digital economy and perceive new technologies as opportunities for job creation and economic growth.” On accelerating the digital transformation: “The BRT urges Japanese Authorities to establish digital maturity centres within universities to support competitiveness through R&D and manufacturing advancements and merge international best practices with Japanese excellence to regain market share lost due to lagging digital transformation.”

Two BRT member organisations also took part in the session: DIGITALEUROPE (represented by Joël Guschker) emphasised the importance of the G7 Hiroshima AI Guiding Principles; EU-Japan collaborations on 6G vision and standardisation and on post-quantum cryptography; DFFT and seamless data transfers; involving stakeholders in regular EU-Japan strategic dialogues. JBCE (represented by Marco Canton) identified 3 areas for enhanced EU-Japan collaboration: Japan getting associated country status in Horizon Europe, DFFT with a focus on interoperability and interconnections between EU and Japanese data spaces and harmonising standards. JEITA also spoke during this session. The rest of the stakeholder workshop featured thematic discussions around the potential for EU-Japan collaborations on AI (including a second presentation by JBCE), semiconductors, quantum computing, cybersecurity, submarine cables (including a presentation by NEC) and on digital identity.

On 30/04/2024, at the conclusion of the 2nd EU-Japan Digital Partnership Council meeting in Brussels, the formal Joint Statement issued by the European Commission, MIC, METI and the Digital Agency referred to the BRT in the English and Japanese versions of their Joint Statement.