During the summit held at Seoul, Korea, President Donald Tusk expressed the following:
At the summit, we discussed regional issues affecting the European neighbourhood. I expressed my thanks to Korea for having voted in favour of United Nations General Assembly Resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. We also agreed to support full and rapid implementation of the Minsk Agreements by all sides. This also includes Russia.
We both view investing in science and technology as key to generating future jobs and growth in our economies. We have seen a major leap in exchanges of researchers, of joint projects between Korean and European institutions and the opening of new areas of cooperation, such as the commitment to work jointly on development of 5G. Today, we agreed to further strengthen our cooperation in this area.
We also agreed to explore ways to use our Free Trade Agreement to grow closer together on both trade and investment. The three framework agreements we have signed since 2010 go beyond trade, investment and economic cooperation, however.
They have also opened up the possibility to work together in the political and security spheres. We have already deepened our efforts in this area since the last summit. And I was very gratified to hear today of your country’s intention to expand cooperation further with us, such as in the counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa.
We lastly discussed in our meetings the global challenges that we face around the world. Again, we discussed solutions to better tackle those challenges, whether it be countering threats such as terrorism or climate change.
In three months, Paris will see one of the most important international events of the year: the UN climate conference, whose goal is to adopt a new climate change agreement. Climate change may put at risk not only the environment, but also prosperity, or even more broadly stability and security. To reach the deal, the European Union submitted the most ambitious contribution to date. In order to succeed, we need others, in particular major economies like the Korean, to join our lead in this process.
