The European Union and East Asia are major actors in global governance. In a globalized world, the two regions are confronted with similar challenges, like the ongoing financial crisis, rising protectionism, human rights violations and poverty, that both require regional and global problem-solving. However, mutual knowledge of the European Asian perspectives on these global issues and how they should be dealt with is often lacking. The main goal of the summer school is to examine and compare how these major issues are being looked at both in the EU and in Asia. In this regard, the goal of this summer school is twofold:

First, it explores how global challenges have fostered regional responses and how perceptions of regional integration processes in the EU and East Asia have changed.

Second, the summer school examines the growing interdependence between the EU and East Asia, the proliferation of bilateral agreements between the EU and some of the Asian countries concerned, and their close interactions in multilateral fora in order to deal with recurring global challenges.

More specifically, the first week of the Euro-Asia Summer School focuses on how the crisis has challenged the regional integration processes in Europe and Asia and how it has changed the perception on regional integration at large. It will draw a particular attention to the lessons that Asia could learn from the crisis in the Eurozone. After a thorough introduction to European and Asian regional integration processes, the second week of the summer school will focus on the different policy dimensions of the EU in global governance as well as its relations with partners in the world, with a special view on bilateral relations with Asian countries (including EU-Japan and EU-Korea relations). It identifies both the opportunities and challenges of the EU’s performance and relations in global governance from a legal, political and economic perspective.

The summer school constitutes furthermore a great learning process to prepare advanced students to analyse, understand, and influence when facing global realities. The summer school therefore targets both excellent European and Asian students who are willing to gain insights into the relationship between the European Union and the fastest emerging region in the world