Our man in Japan

Working for the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Co-operation, Silviu Jora has found a professional niche for his personal interests

Silviu Jora may work for the European Commission’s directorate-general for enterprise and industry, but when he looks around his office the atmosphere is far from the Brussels norm. “It’s pretty much a Japanese environment,” he says. “Here in our Tokyo office, 80% [of staff] are Japanese, the layout is Japanese, and the way they do things is Japanese.” Yet at the same time it feels international. “People communicate in English and they have travelled abroad.”

This is the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Co-operation, a joint venture between the European Commission and the Japanese government, intended to build business partnerships and help companies negotiate cultural differences on both sides. Jora is general manager, a role he shares with Japanese counterpart Hiroshi Tsukamoto.

The centre was established in 1987, in a period when Europe was fascinated with Japanese economic success and Japan was curious about the newly-minted European single market. Initially, it set out to demystify Japan for European companies, with training and information services to help them gain access to the market. Over time its role has become more balanced, with additional activities promoting Japanese business in Europe and technological co-operation between the two sides.

Jora’s introduction to Japan came in 1999, through a visiting fellowship at the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo. At that point, he was a young PhD graduate working as a researcher in a think-tank within Romania’s ministry of foreign affairs. The experience soon had him thinking of career possibilities. “I observed that knowledge about the EU and European studies was not well developed in Japan, compared to the United States for example. So I thought there might be a professional niche there.”

But before he could act on the idea, he was drawn into Romania’s accession to the EU. He worked on the ministry’s negotiating team for several years, leaving when the process entered a more administrative phase. Returning to academia as an associate professor, he gravitated back to Japan, where he taught EU studies at various universities for a period of six years.

At the same time he was exploring other options. “Although I was enjoying tremendously what I was doing in Japan, I thought it was time to practise what I preached a little.” So he sat the competition to become a Commission civil servant.

Jora was successful in the competition and found himself working on innovation policy within the directorate-general for enterprise and industry in Brussels. But he was drawn back to Tokyo in 2011 when his present post fell vacant. “It was a tremendous opportunity for me to have a continuation of my previous activities in Japan. Besides my professional duties, I feel I have a personal commitment to this mission. So I’m lucky in this sense.”

The centre’s joint structure makes management a uniquely collaborative affair. “We have to discuss, negotiate and find common ground for everything, which in itself is fascinating,” says Jora. “And it’s reassuring to see that there are so many commonalities between the EU and Japan in terms of challenges and solutions.” Innovation and the need to internationalise small and medium-sized enterprises rose quickly to the top of the agenda, along with topics such as healthy ageing and clean energy.

The time difference from Europe means that the job requires stamina. After working regular hours in Tokyo, Jora often remains online long into the evening, speaking with contacts and colleagues in Brussels, where the centre also has an office. But the rewards of the job, along with the continuing fascination he feels for Japan, satisfy him. “I feel that I can play a role for Europe here in Japan,” he says.

Ian Mundell is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.