EU’s Policy toward North Korea: A Normative Realist Explanation

Abstract

This paper examines the EU’s North Korea policy and finds that it has developed through three stages: from active engagement to critical engagement, and finally to active pressure. The engagement policy was triggered by the food shortage in 1995. However, it changed to a more realist policy in response to DPRK’s nuclear provocation. The change from engagement to sanctions provides evidence of the EU’s alteration from its traditional normative foreign policy. This paper further investigates the dynamics behind the EU’s North Korea policy shift. The analysis shows that the EU tends to adhere to solutions such as dialogue when dealing with the DPRK nuclear problem, whereas member states prefer to apply pressure through sanctions. This has shifted EU’s North Korea policy from a normative to a realist approach.