Abstract
In the context of the development of the EU's policy towards the Korean Peninsula and North East Asia the aim of this article is to analyze and evaluate the EU's policy towards the North Korea. While there has been extensive scholarly work undertaken on the role and impact of the EU in an international context there have been few studies on the relations between the EU and the North Korea-the ‘world's last unreformed Stalinist state’.
The paper will focus on the way the EU is handling relations with the North, especially in light of the North's ballistic and nuclear missile developments and the absence of human rights in the country. In so doing it will be divided into four sections. First, it will highlight the explanations of certain EU actors in charge of the external relations with the North. Here the thoughts of DG personnel in the European Commission and the Committee on Foreign Affairs/Commission des affaires étrangères (AFET) in the European Parliament will be drawn upon. It will also touch upon the formation of the delegation for relations with the Korean Peninsula (DKOR).
Secondly, a short history of the relations between the two will be undertaken by paying attention to the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO) and the EU's rapid establishment of diplomatic relations with the North. The change of the political context between the two, due to the missile launches in July and the nuclear test in October 2006, will also be examined.
Thirdly, the ways in which the European Parliament is dealing with the issues in light of recent deterioration in relations across the Korean Peninsula are also commented upon.
Fourthly, EU's policy towards the human rights in the North is analyzed. This includes the attention paid to the issue of ‘slave labor’ of the North Korean workers in Europe that is directly related with the EU's emphasis on human rights as part of its own d'être. This issue is also connected with the problem as to whether the products of the Kaesong industrial complex should be included in the EU-ROK Free Trade Agreement, which is presently under negotiation.
As a result of the analyses of the EU's approach to the North, four interrelated problems are identified as problematic:
First, the delay associated with decision-making in the EU. Second the problem emanating from the EU's non-participation at the ‘Six-Way Party Talks’. Third is the continuing lack of a common policy towards the North. Finally the problem incurred by the policies connected with the so called ‘Sunshine Policy’ that originated with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in 1998.
In conclusion, it can be said that since the present policy of the EU is to support the ‘Sunshine Policy’, it is becoming increasingly incompatible with the ideas and stipulations laid out in the Treaty of the European Union-in particular the terrible human rights conditions in the North. It also leads to a gross under-estimation of the military threat of the North by aligning itself with a pro-north player who has come under fire for granting unconditional aid to the North.
