EU-Japan Digital Partnership: Towards a Robust Alliance for an Uncertain Geopolitical Era

By Raluca Csernatoni and Eva Pejsova

CSDS In-Depth Paper

19/2025

The European Union-Japan Digital Partnership encompasses a broad array of high-tech sectors essential to economic security and cutting-edge innovation. It commits to deeper collaboration in areas such as next-generation networks, Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum computing, semiconductors, cybersecurity and undersea cables. Yet, challenges remain. Different regulatory approaches create a fragmented landscape, and both the EU and Japan need to prioritise the maintenance of interoperability, with deeper efforts at regulatory alignment. While full harmonisation may be unrealistic, greater convergence in principles and standards would help reduce fragmentation, ease market access and foster innovation and investment, while also embedding shared democratic values into the digital domain. While economic security and industrial competitiveness remain the main drivers of EU-Japan collaboration in the digital domain, both sides also view this competitiveness as inherently linked to shared democratic values. Human-centric and values-based alignment does not replace economic aims but supports them, ensuring that competitiveness is founded on trusted, transparent and rights-respecting principles. Thus, this model sets EU-Japan cooperation apart from authoritarian or solely profit-driven alternatives.

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