President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea (center) meets with European Council President António Costa (left) and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (right) in Brussels, Belgium, on June 10, 2026. (Park Jong-shik/Hankyoreh)
Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who is currently in Europe to attend the Group of Seven summit, is pushing for closer ties between middle powers like Korea and major European countries. Building coalitions with middle powers like Japan, Canada, Australia and EU member states is invaluable for defending Korea’s national interests at a time when the liberal international order once maintained by the US is rapidly collapsing following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.With the awareness that defending the rules-based international order is essential for our very survival, we must strive to bolster cooperation with middle powers that find themselves in a similar predicament.Lee delivered a commemorative address during a special mass held at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome on Sunday. During his address, Lee spoke of his wish to “build a virtuous cycle in which peace on the Korean Peninsula leads to world peace, and global solidarity reinforces peace on the Korean Peninsula.”Lee will be attending the G7 summit in Evian, France, on Monday through Wednesday. The biggest achievement of his trip so far, his fifth to Europe since taking office, is Korea and the EU’s reaffirmation of the crucial need to restore the rules-based international order.In a statement released following their summit in Brussels on Wednesday, Lee and the leaders of the European Union said that “international cooperation — based on international law, shared values and interests, and open economies — remains the best way to strengthen our common security and prosperity.”Lee and the EU leaders expressed unmistakable opposition to Trump’s barrage of tariffs under his slogan of “making America great again” and his preemptive strike on Iran, which is widely regarded as a violation of international law. But Lee and his EU counterparts also expressed their “shared commitment to [. . .] a stable and predictable rules-based free and fair economic order.”“At a time when geopolitical crises are unfolding rapidly, it’s important for us to strengthen communication not only with neighboring countries such as the US, China and Japan, but also with the leaders of the EU and major countries in Europe,” Korean national security adviser Wi Sung-lac said in a briefing on Friday.Cooperation between middle powers has drawn global attention since the speech that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.Carney said that middle powers that cannot resist great powers on their own “must act together.”“If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” he added.The significance of Carney’s words is immediately apparent when Koreans recall the utter isolation Seoul faced in its tariff negotiations with Washington last year.Smaller countries have to band together if they want to stop the great powers from throwing their weight around.Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
