The EU’s Indo-Pacific Strategy and Implications for Japan-Italy Relations

By Eva Pejsova

13.6.2025

LUISS School of Government

The EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific (EUSIP), issued in October 2021, represents the Union’s main comprehensive political framework for advancing cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. Spanning across seven priority areas, including trade, security and defence, green transition, and connectivity, it outlines the key objectives and serves as guiding terms of reference for Brussels’ engagement in the region. A consensus document, it reflects the growing interest of the twenty-seven Member States. While obviously not all Member States share the same level of aspirations and capacities, the broad scope of the Strategy allows individual European countries to use is as an anchor for their own national strategies, tailor it to their specific needs and interests, and focus on whatever preferred partners and areas they wish.

Italy’s growing footprint in the Indo-Pacific and recent strengthening of its bilateral relations with Japan is a good illustration of the symbiotic nature of the ‘Team Europe’ approach to the region. Although not among the initial actors behind the strategy, Rome has embarked on its own quiet pivot driven by national economic and security considerations, achieving remarkable progress notably in the field of security and defence cooperation. Among others, the dispatch of its navy ships, as well as joint defence industrial initiatives such as the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), attest of the great potential Italy can play in fulfilling Europe’s ambitions and strengthening security ties with like-minded Indo-Pacific partners. As much as the EU serves as a multiplier of national interests in the field of trade and economic security, Member States are indispensable to the implementation and operationalisation of its security agenda.

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