Europe’s Stalled North Korea Policy
US President Donald Trump is openly discussing the possibility of holding a new summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. His South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae Myung, has proposed restoring communication channels between his country and North Korea. Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae has also vowed to meet with Kim. The three of them see diplomacy as a means to an end: to advance their foreign policy goals vis-a-vis Pyongyang.
What about Europe? During the last round of summit diplomacy with North Korea in 2018-2019, Kim met the leaders of the US, South Korea, China, Russia, Singapore and Vietnam while Europe sat on the sidelines. Europe risks missing out once more if diplomacy between Trump and Kim resumes in the coming months. Although North Korea is not high on the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy priorities, being shut out of future diplomatic processes with Pyongyang is not in Europe’s interest. Breaking its current paralysis on North Korea, however, to be able to play a more active role in any future engagement attempts will be difficult given the current geopolitical circumstances, especially North Korea’s growing cooperation with Russia.
EU’s Prior Critical Engagement
Europe’s North Korea policy has had many false starts since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the embassies of European countries in Pyongyang to close in 2020. As staff rotation and supply shipping became impossible, European countries had no other option at the time but to exit the country. This marked the first period since the 1970s that no European country had a presence in North Korea. As a result, European diplomats lost their role as conveyors of some of the most accurate information about daily life in Pyongyang and elsewhere in North Korea, direct access to their interlocutors in the North Korean central government, and their position as intermediaries between governments without a presence in Pyongyang—including the United States—and North Korea.
Only in September of last year did Sweden became the first European country to reopen its embassy in Pyongyang. Polish diplomats followed suit two months later. Switzerland also reopened its embassy in February of this year. The Bulgarian ambassador meanwhile, presented his credentials this July but is based in Beijing. Yet, most of these embassies are operating with few staff compared to their pre-pandemic presence did and with much more limited access both in Pyongyang and to the rest of the country. Germany and the UK, for their part, have explored the possibility of reopening their embassies in the North Korean capital but to no avail as of yet. Moreover, Track II dialogues, which used to be one of the hallmarks of Europe’s contribution to engagement with North Korea before the pandemic, have not resumed.
In the meantime, the EU’s policy of “critical engagement” towards North Korea continues unchanged since it was first unveiled in the early 2000s, with the UK following a similar approach. In theory, this policy mixes the carrots of dialogue and economic support with the stick of sanctions to achieve North Korea’s denuclearization, improvement in the human rights situation of ordinary North Koreans, and a more stable Korean Peninsula. In practice, dialogue with North Korea ceased in 2015, humanitarian aid had already slowed down to a trickle even before the pandemic, and for years Europe’s policy has focused on a growing number of sanctions due to Pyongyang’s nuclear and cyberattack records as well as regular condemnations of its human rights abuses.
North Korea’s Support for Russia: Europe’s Reaction
North Korea’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has, understandably, further complicated its relations with Europe. The Kim Jong Un regime has sent troops, missiles, artillery shells and workers, helping Russia in its fight against Ukraine. Pyongyang has also been a staunch ally of Moscow in UN General Assembly votes about the invasion and blamed the United States, NATO and Ukraine itself for Russia’s actions.
In return, Russia signed a de facto alliance with North Korea in June 2024 in which both sides agreed to support each other in case of being under attack, and Moscow has reportedly provided Pyongyang with military assistance, financial support and food and other aid. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia can also veto any new resolution to impose new sanctions on North Korea.
Putin was also the first foreign leader to meet with Kim after the pandemic, when the two leaders held a summit in the Russian Far East in September 2023. The Russian president then visited North Korea in June 2024—his first trip to the country since 2000. To top it all off, Putin and Kim famously flanked Chinese president Xi Jinping during China’s military parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in September of this year.
The response by European policy-makers to the newfound North Korea-Russia relationship has followed its long-standing approach towards the Kim regime: regular condemnations of Pyongyang’s support to Moscow, the imposition of sanctions on North Koreans providing support to Russia’s invasion. The EU has also halted all aid to North Korea, and drawn attention to the extent to which the security of Europe and the Korean Peninsula are intertwined. There is no prospect of official dialogue between the EU and North Korea resuming any time soon, even to discuss Pyongyang’s support for Russia. In a sense, Europe’s policy towards North Korea is not moving either forward or backwards. It has stalled.
Unpacking Europe’s Policy Paralysis
In this context, why has Europe’s policy towards North Korea become paralyzed? To begin with and simply put, North Korea is not a priority for European policymakers. Their hands are full dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, increasingly antagonistic relations with China, differences with the Trump administration on a range of issues or instability in the Middle East, among others. There is limited bandwidth available to focus on North Korea. Particularly, since there is an expectation that once the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is over North Korea will cease to be a direct security threat to Europe—its cyber activities aside. Plus, as diplomacy between North Korea on the one hand and the United States and South Korea on the other has been absent for years, there is little that Europe can do in terms of shifting the Kim regime’s calculus via engagement. This only reinforces the low priority of North Korea among European policymakers.
In addition, Pyongyang’s support for Russia has also served to stifle debate on how to deal with North Korea, helping to explain why sanctions and condemnation are the policies of choice. The country’s actions have made it difficult to argue for Europe to engage in dialogue or other types of activities. And even countries seeking to restore a modicum of relations with North Korea face challenges. Last year, for example, North Korea cancelled planned visits by Czech, German and UK delegations poised to discuss the reopening of their respective embassies. And it also seems that European countries that have reopened their embassies in Pyongyang and organizations looking to restart Track II dialogues are facing difficulties in sparking North Korea’s interest, as they indicate that regular communication with their counterparts is not forthcoming. This makes it even more difficult for a genuine debate on how to approach relations with Pyongyang to take hold.
In addition, the view that North Korea has become part of an authoritarian bloc together with China, Iran and Russia has also, paradoxically, helped to reduce interest in dealing with North Korea among policy-makers. The main reason is that China, Iran and Russia are bigger concerns for Europe—particularly Moscow and Beijing, in this order. Therefore, confronting this bloc draws attention to its two most important members, from a European perspective. Therefore, the focus is on addressing and, if possible, changing their behaviour rather than on North Korea, which is considered to have limited influence over the other members of the bloc.
Thinking About the Future
Considering the above, it is possible to predict that the critical element of Europe’s “critical engagement” policy will continue to dominate its approach towards North Korea. That is, sanctions and condemnation. After all, this also matches the current approach of the United States or South Korea—the two countries with the greatest influence in how Europe sees the North Korea conundrum.
At the same time, countries that already have or are considering whether to have a diplomatic presence in North Korea will continue to press ahead with diplomacy. After all, diplomats are trained to deal with both friends and foes. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the European countries that had a diplomatic outpost in Pyongyang before the pandemic would like to continue to continue or resume their presence now.
If and when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over, it may be that some European countries and the EU reconsider their policies towards North Korea to focus more on incentives. Particularly, if the United States and South Korea can restart diplomacy with Pyongyang. There is regret among many European policymakers that Europe did not provide greater support to Seoul and Washington during the 2018-2019 period. A new Trump-Kim summit or some form of inter-Korean communication could help tip the scale towards Europe’s reengagement of North Korea as well if the conditions are right. Yet, this seems a very distant prospect at the moment.