The European Union's high-level delegation to North and South Korea marks a decisive development in its foreign policy engagement and is a genuine contribution to the peace process in that divided country. The delegation, led by the Swedish prime minister, Mr Goran Persson, has had an enthusiastic reception both in Pyongyang and Seoul. The representations it has made on human rights issues, on missile deployment and security and on aid, investment and market innovation, have demonstrated that there are alternative sources of international involvement to that of the United States. Up to now, that country has virtually monopolised diplomatic initiatives on Korea. Mr Persson has been careful to emphasise parallelism with the US rather than a competitive involvement in Korean affairs, an attitude echoed by American officials; but there should be no mistaking the significance of this trip for the longer term development of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy. President Bush moved sharply to freeze the policy of Mr Bill Clinton, telling President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea he did not trust North Korea to adhere to commitments to place a moratorium on missile tests, weapons proliferation and development. Since North Korea is one of the principal "rogue states" defined as a potential nuclear threat to the US, against which Mr Bush's national missile defence plan is designed to operate, it is not surprising that he should have taken such a sceptical view of North Korean intentions. Its leader, President Kim Jung-il, affirmed to the EU delegation his determination to maintain the missile test moratorium until 2003. Since the new US strategic plans have such major implications for Europe, it is intriguing to find the foreign policy engagement extending to the other side of the world as the issue comes fully on to the political agenda. The North Korean leader also pledged himself to have a second summit meeting with Mr Kim Dae-jung - but only after President Bush has completed his policy review of the issue. Thus there are several incentives built into this process for the new administration not to reverse altogether the policy it inherited from Mr Clinton.
In their brief visit to North Korea, the EU delegation and accompanying journalists were able to catch vivid glimpses of the conditions which have made the regime there so isolated from the rest of the world and in recent years so vulnerable to economic collapse. Left stranded by the end of the Cold War, this last bastion of Stalinist totalitarianism has suffered natural disasters that have imposed chronic shortages of fertiliser, fuel, energy and consumer goods on its people, along with famine conditions in which up to two million people may have died. This is in spite of the diversion of resources into expensive weapons development programmes. South Korea has prudently decided to engage with the North politically and economically rather than be obliged to absorb millions of impoverished people in the event that the regime collapses. There was a similar incentive for the North Korean leaders. The most constructive aspect of the EU delegation's visit is to help keep those options open while the US decides on its new policies towards north-east Asia.