Letter of congratulations from Presidents Tusk and Juncker to Shinzō Abe on his reconfirmation as Prime Minister of Japan

Met dank overgenomen van Europese Raad i, gepubliceerd op maandag 23 oktober 2017.

We would like to warmly congratulate you on winning this Sunday's general elections. Your reconfirmation as Prime Minister gives you a strong mandate to accelerate an ambitious reform agenda and will allow us to further deepen the close personal relationship that we have developed.

We look forward to continuing our successful cooperation with you and to take forward our common agenda for free and fair trade and a rules-based international order. Following the EU i-Japan summit held in July this year, we are finalising the negotiations of the Strategic Partnership Agreement and the Economic Partnership Agreement and we trust that very soon we can reap the benefits of these agreements. We should aim to conclude the negotiations by December. As strategic partners we have a responsibility to enhance our bilateral security partnership, as well as to cooperate closely on the manifold shared challenges in our regions, and in particular on the Korean peninsula.

We look forward to meeting you soon and wish you and your government every success for the future.