Richard Collasse
President and Representative Director of Chanel K.K., EBC Chairman 2002 to 2008

I believe that Europe and Japan share a similar approach to capitalism. It is based on human beings, on respect for the individual. This shared holistic and humanistic approach is one reason we should strive to increase trade with an economic integration agreement (EIA). In the process, we can bring down some of the barriers that obstruct the exchange of goods, people, services and capital.
We need an EIA. Take just one sector: the medical devices industry. Because of old fashioned rules that make the approval process incredibly slow, Japanese hospitals have devices that are one, two, or even three generations older than in Europe or the US.
The process to approve a drug in Japan is incredibly tough. It is tough anywhere in the world; that’s fine, you are talking about the health of people, and it’s a matter of life or death sometimes. But it’s tough to a level that is unbelievable and unacceptable. And why can’t a doctor who has studied in this country practice in Europe? Or why can’t a European doctor practice in Japan? We are talking about very sophisticated countries.
So why doesn’t an EIA happen? Because some industries don’t want it to happen. There’s a fear that tariffs would fall on both sides. But the problem is that Europe has more tariffs than Japan. The European automobile industry, for example, doesn’t want those tariffs to fall. In essence, I think it’s one bloc of industry or another just refusing to allow competition.
So we believe that an integration agreement can’t happen overnight; it will take many years. But why don’t we proceed step by step, starting with some industries that are more or less ready to talk? I believe that the pharmaceuticals industry could be one. The medical device industry could be another. There are lots of small ones.
In fact, there can always be a trade-off, and I’m sure even the automobile industry can benefit. It is really interesting that even within the automobile sector some European manufacturers think an EIA isn’t a bad idea because they believe more is to be gained than lost from increased competition. Also, I’m not saying that the automobile industry should just drop tariffs unilaterally. There are non-tariff barriers here affecting them that we should discuss with the administration.

Easy excuses
Sometimes people talk about cultural differences, telling us that so-called non-tariff barriers are differences in culture between Japan and Europe. That’s absolute nonsense, just a too easy excuse to avoid change. You know, a while ago they said that because Japanese people’s intestines were longer than those of Europeans, Japanese people couldn’t eat European meat.
I’ve been in Japan for 38 years. I’ve been with Chanel for 25 years, a French consular for trade for 20 years, chairman of the French Chamber of Commerce for three years, and for seven years I was the chairman of the EBC. Things have changed in Japan and they haven’t changed.
Now you can hire people who can speak good English or French, when it was next to impossible before. You can get cheese; back then I had to smuggle it in. All these tall buildings in Ginza weren’t here when I arrived. We are lucky that Japan is still a very safe place, and services are still excellent. Japanese people will tell you that their country is not what it used to be. But it has changed less than the rest of the world.
Business change? There are a lot of regulations that have been discussed for 30 years. Not much progress has been made. Now the DPJ actually seems more protectionist than the LDP. Koizumi tried to initiate change. I met him and he was a very interesting man, very open to discussion. But you can tell how inward looking the DPJ is. It is no secret that Japanese industry thinks the DPJ has no idea what business is. They just aren’t doing anything.
I don’t think I will ever go back to France. Absolutely no thanks. But even when people say I’m very Japanese, I reply that I am very French in my way of thinking, and proud of what France has given the world. It is a beautiful country to visit.
My life is busy. Now I am writing my third novel. Finding time to do that and still spend time with my five children is a challenge; my eldest is 32 and youngest six years old. People ask me how I manage to write, and I usually tell them that I don’t play golf. You never ask people who play golf how they find time, do you?
We live in interesting times. The world is changing very fast. New powers are rising: China, India, eventually Brazil. I think that Europe and Japan have to reassess their relationship. Today, everyone’s talking about the relationship between China and America. If we just keep on sitting on our backsides nothing will happen. We need a new alliance: an alliance between Europe and Japan.