Korea–European Union relations: beyond the FTA?

In 2009, Korea and the European Union (EU) signed a free trade agree-ment. Using a traditional list of state goals in foreign policy – national security, economic growth, prestige-seeking, and values-promotion – I examine the prospects for cooperation and integration in the future. I find that deeper engagement is unlikely. Most importantly, neither side is relevant to the basic security issues of the other. Specifically, the EU cannot assist Korea in its acute security dilemma, and ‘sovereigntist’ Korea does not share EU preferences for soft power, regionalization, and multilateral collective security. However, Korea is likely to pursue the relationship for cost-free prestige-taking. And the EU will under-stand this ‘Asian bridge ’ as a success for the promotion of liberal-demo-cratic values in a non-European context. Pro-regionalist elites, most notably the ‘eureaucracy’, may pursue ‘inter-regional ’ ties for internal institutional reasons, but deep Korean attachment to the Westphalian state model will likely stymie such efforts