Over the past months, the pandemic COVID-19 has been expanding throughout the world with unprecedented scale and speed. As of 28 May 2020, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), over 5,6 million people have been infected, of which EU/EEA and the UK account for approximately for 24% of all global cases. International cooperation to combat the pandemic is crucial.

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The EU-Japan Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA), which provisionally entered in to force on 1 February 2019, is a fitting instrument to facilitate global efforts to overcome the crisis by promoting bilateral cooperation between the European Union and Japan in a broad range of areas affected by the pandemic.

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It is in this context that the EU and Japan now organise an “EU-Japan Webinar Series on COVID-19”; from June to October, a total of 9 webinars will be held to inform and exchange views about the EU and Japan responses to COVID-19 as well as to provide ideas for enhancing EU-Japan cooperation in this new context.

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So please join the discussions in a wish that the recovery from the crisis brings about real change to our economies and societies.