President Moon Jae-in met with President of the European Council Donald Tusk and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker for a Korea-EU summit. They discussed the direction of future developments within a strategic partnership between Korea and the European Union as well as regional affairs involving the Korean Peninsula and pending global issues.

Today’s Korea-EU summit was the first since President Moon took office. The parties noted that Korea and the European Union have deepened and advanced cooperation based on three key agreements: the Framework Agreement, Free Trade Agreement and Crisis Management Participation Agreement. They also agreed to step up joint efforts to promote mutually beneficial trade and free, multilateral trade between Korea and the European Union.
 
 President Moon requested that the European Union take interest in ensuring mutually beneficial trade relations between Korea and the European Union are not affected by the recent EU safeguard measures on steel goods. Provisional safeguard measures on 23 steel goods by the European Commission came into effect on July 19 this year.

At today's summit, participating leaders came to an agreement to work closely together in such areas as science and technology, information and communications technology, innovation and small and medium-sized enterprises. They also agreed to strengthen cooperation for denuclearization and the settlement of a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. 

The EU leaders said that they welcomed the inter-Korean summits and would play a necessary role in and make contributions to the peace process.

The leaders shared an understanding that taking joint responses was more significant than ever not only for peace on the Korean Peninsula but also when solving various issues facing the international community today. They also agreed to closely cooperate on such international social issues as climate change, sustainable development, prevention of illegal fishing and refugee crises.