Annual Meeting 2017

"EU-Japan – The Dawn of a New Relationship"   

The BRT held its 19th annual meeting, on 11 July 2017, at the Palais d'Egmont in Brussels.

To see how the BRT was covered on Twitter and by the media, see the 2017 cuttings page.

The meeting on 11 July, began with a formal opening session with keynote addresses from European Commission Vice-President Katainen and Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Sonoura. Mr Katainen then received the formal submission of the BRT's 2017 Recommendations on behalf of the European Commission.

A transcript of Mr Katainen's speech is available on the European Commission's website.

The next session addressed practical examples of EU-Japan science and research cooperation in fields as diverse as 5G, aerospace and in AI & IoT. It included a speech by Mr Akama, State Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan.

The BRT then had the opportunity to react to the recently-announced EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement. EU Trade Commissioner Malmström, Mr Sonoura and the European Parliament's Silva Pereira all took part in the discussion.

A transcript of Ms Malmström's speech is available on the European Commission's website.

The final themed discussion addressed the Digital Economy and began with keynote addresses by European Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip and by State Minister Akama.

A transcript of Mr Ansip's speech is available on the European Commission's website.

The BRT held its traditional Joint Session with the Authorities in the afternoon.

Lowri Evans, Director-General at DG GROW gave the keynote speech during the evening drinks reception and Hiroshige Seko, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan gave the dinner keynote speech.

The BRT formally adopted several documents:

• Its Summary of Recommendations to the EU and Japanese Authorities;
• Recommendations by the Working Party on Trade Relations; Investment and Regulatory Cooperation; Financial Services, Accounting and Taxation
• Recommendations by the Working Party on Life Sciences & Biotechnology, Healthcare and Well-being;
• Recommendations by the Working Party on Digital Innovation & Mobility;
• Recommendations by the Working Party on Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development
• Press Release of the 19th EU-Japan Business Round Table

BRT on twitter

The meeting received some coverage on twitter. See the 2017 cuttings page for copies of the tweets. The original tweets can also be found below.

• tweets by Mr Ansip: montage of event photos and transcript of his speech
• tweets by EU-Japan Centre: speech by Mr Sonoura, handover to Mr Katainen, speech by Ms Malmström, digital economy session and BRT family photo
• tweets by Ms Malmström: EU-Japan relations, transcript of her speech
• tweet by Mr Wiegand: on the EU-Japan EPA and SPA
• tweets by BusinessEurope: on data flows, on rules-based trade, on regulatory cooperation and on a strong signal in favour of trade
• tweets by employees of BusinessEurope, ASD and PostEurope

Handover of the BRT's 2017 Recommendations to PM Abe

On 19 July 2017, BRT Japan-side Chairman, Mr Tsukuda, and BRT EU-side Member, Mr Risberg, formally submitted the BRT's 2017 Recommendations to PM Abe. Danny Risberg took part, to represent Mr Schulz at the handover.

The handover was reported on the official Japanese Government website in English and in Japanese, together with a video recording and pictures from the meeting.

Handover photo © courtesy of Cabinet Secretariat, Cabinet Public Relations Office