Interviews & Articles

I am delighted to be visiting Slovakia to attend the "V4+Japan" Foreign Ministers' Meeting, which will be held for the first time in five years. Since Slovakia assumed the V4 Presidency on July 1, I am deeply honored that the V4 has chosen Japan as its first dialogue partner from outside Europe. This reflects the trust that Japan and the V4 have cultivated over many years, and it symbolises the great expectations we share for future cooperation.

During my visit to Bratislava, I intend to discuss with my V4 friends the direction of our cooperation going forward. Upholding and strengthening a free and open international order based on the rule of law, ensuring peace and stability in the international community, maintaining open markets, and defending the rules-based international economic order. These are interests shared by both Japan and the V4 countries. It is now abundantly clear that the security and economies of Europe and the Indo-Pacific are inseparable.

This year, Japan announced the updated version of "Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)" — a vision first championed a decade ago by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. On the basis of this vision, we intend to pursue efforts to enhance resilience and the capability to have the freedom to decide for themselves across nations. The core principles underpinning FOIP — "freedom," "openness," "diversity," "inclusivity," and the "rule of law" — remain unchanged. I am firmly convinced that this updated FOIP will serve as a pillar supporting the further development of our partnership with the V4. This is because, as global supply chains become ever more interconnected across borders and regions, non-market policies and practices, economic coercion, and excessive dependence on specific partners are common challenges facing the V4 countries, the EU, and Japan alike. It is precisely for this reason that expanding cooperation with trusted like-minded and friendly nations, diversifying supply chains, and enhancing resilience- the capacity to withstand crises - as well as the ability to determine one's own destiny, are of paramount importance. This, I believe, is the very vision for realising the free and open world that we wish to leave to future generations.

While we work to turn this vision into a reality, there already exists a solid foundation between Japan and the V4, bound by ties of over one hundred years. The number of Japanese companies operating in the V4 countries already exceeds 900. Over many years, Japanese companies have made substantial investments in the V4 countries, creating employment and embedding technological expertise, and grown together with our friends in the region. Today, this journey is expanding into new domains, beginning to shape the next one hundred years of the relationship between the V4 and Japan.

One emblematic manifestation of this is already underway here in Košice, Slovakia. U.S. Steel Košice is set to transition to a structure of direct investment by Nippon Steel starting October 1, taking a new step forward as "Nippon Steel Slovakia." Nippon Steel positions Slovakia as the core hub of its European operations, and in Košice — a city of approximately 200,000 people — the number of jobs maintained by Nippon Steel stands at around 8,000. I would like to acknowledge that, behind those 8,000 employees are their families, business partners, and local communities. By combining the technology that Nippon Steel has cultivated coupled with the extraordinarily skilled labour and industrial base that Košice has long nurtured, it is expected that high-quality steel will be delivered from Slovakia to Europe and to the world, while also contributing to the sustainable development of the regional economy.

In the field of cutting-edge technology, which will design the societies of the future, cooperation between Japan and the V4 countries also holds enormous potential. Japan and the V4 countries, which have produced numerous inventors, including many Nobel Prize laureates, are fully entitled of serving as frontrunners driving global innovation, given our accumulated intellectual heritage and technological prowess. In July of this year, Japan signed an agreement concerning its association with "Horizon Europe," the EU's research and development support framework. Taking this historic step as a new point of departure, I strongly look forward to researchers, universities, and companies from Japan and the V4 together building an innovation ecosystem in the fields of advanced science and technology, including AI and quantum technologies. I hope to nurture, together with our friends in the　V4, the small seeds born in laboratories, and to one day grow them into great trees that change the world. This is precisely the path by which Japan and the V4 will, with our own hands, create a resilient future together.

It is in today's age of heightened uncertainty in international affairs and the global economy that what is truly tested is not the height of walls, but the depth of bonds with trusted partners. I am resolved to make this "V4+Japan" Foreign Ministers' Meeting — convened for the first time in five years — an opportunity to reliably connect the trust built up over more than a century to the next level of ambition: the next investment, the next technology, and the next generation. I believe that this visit to Slovakia will serve as the point of departure for such a journey toward that future.