Statement by President von der Leyen with President Costa and President Lee Jae Myung following the EU-Republic of Korea Summit

Dear President Lee,

It is my honour, together with my friend António, to welcome you to Brussels for the 11th EU-Korean summit. Europe and the Republic of Korea share a decades-old bond, and that bond is growing stronger on all levels. For example, today, young Europeans are filling entire arenas to see BTS and Blackpink perform. But there are also millions of Koreans that watch their compatriots playing for European football clubs. And this mutual appreciation is also manifestly clear in our political and economic partnership.

Indeed, 15 years ago, our predecessors met here in Brussels. The free trade agreement they signed has more than doubled our trade. And the strategic partnership they concluded has expanded our cooperation. Today we work on security, crisis management, maritime cooperation, science, technology, innovation, trade, and much, much more. And our security is more interconnected than ever. The fact that North Korean soldiers are fighting alongside Russian soldiers in Ukraine, serves as a strong reminder of this. From day one on, Korea has condemned Russia's illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, and your country has given vital support to our Ukrainian friends in their fight for liberation. For this, we are very, very thankful.

Korea was among the first Indo-Pacific partners with whom we concluded a security and defence partnership agreement, and it has brought strong momentum to our cooperation. Today we decided to start negotiations on a security of information agreement. These are just some of the many reasons why I say with confidence that Korea is one of Europe's closest partners in the Indo-Pacific region and on the global stage. And I am deeply convinced that the best is yet to come. Because in today's uncertain world, stable and trusted partnerships like ours are more precious than ever. So today we have taken ambitious steps to advance our relationship even further.

First on trade, we will build on our successful partnership with a digital trade agreement. It will consolidate our trade cooperation in the digital sphere. It will ensure safe and reliable data flow. It will boost e-commerce, and it will harmonize our consumer protection standards. We also decided to deepen cooperation on economic security. This will help us to strengthen our resilience against external shocks and tackle strategic vulnerabilities. We will notably work together in secure access to critical raw materials and protect our sensitive technologies.

Second, we launched a new competitiveness partnership. This will strengthen our industrial and technological edge, it will attract investments, and it will accelerate the clean and digital transitions on both sides. To drive this agenda forward, we will establish a high-level economic dialogue. This will bring together our work on trade, on investment, on economic security, and on industrial policy. These efforts reinforce one another and deliver tangible results and prosperity for our people and our businesses.

The third point I want to mention is that we want to expand our cooperation on clean energy production. This is not only a climate imperative, it is a strategic one. We see strong potential in the areas of hydrogen and offshore wind, and there is great potential to develop business partnerships in the nuclear energy space, including small modular reactors. We discussed that intensively today. This will help strengthen our energy security at a critical time and enhance our competitiveness over the long term. Here, too, I welcome that we launch a dedicated high-level energy dialogue.

And finally, let me turn to the crown jewel that is research and innovation. Europe and Korea are working together to shape the technologies of tomorrow. On AI, we are already cooperating very closely on safety, on governance, on trusted innovations. As a global leader on semiconductors, Korea is a key partner for the European Union. Building on these strengths, we will deepen our cooperation across research and innovation and across the AI stack. Moreover, last year, Korea joined Horizon Europe. We were very happy about that. It's the world's largest and most renowned research and innovation programme, and our cooperation has been a great success so far. So today we discussed how to continue this cooperation in the next programming period that starts in 2028.

To conclude, dear President Lee, dear António, our 11th EU-Korea summit has been a resounding success. Now we must get to work and ensure that all our promises that we have given to each other in new areas of cooperation deliver. Deliver the right results for our people and our businesses.

Thank you very much.