North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Joëlle Hivonnet: How the North Korean threat came knocking on the EU’s door

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

This week, Dr. Joëlle Hivonnet joins the podcast to discuss her four-year tenure as the EU’s deputy head in Seoul from 2016, a tumultuous era in inter-Korean relations defined by both tensions and diplomacy. Hivonnet talks about how U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats against North Korea transformed into summit talks between leader Kim Jong Un, […]

You're listening to an exclusive episode of the NK News podcast available only to subscribers. You can listen to this and other episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NKNews website at nknews.org slash private-feed. Hello, listeners, and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O'Swed. And today, it is Wednesday, the 5th of November, 2025, and I'm joined by a stream yard by a brand new guest, and that is Dr. Joel Yvonneette, who, is a French national who worked for EU institutions for over 30 years and has recently retired.

She was posted in Seoul as the number two in the EU delegation or embassy to the Republic of Korea from 2016 to 2020. Her other postings include New York, Geneva, Bissau and Kathmandu. Prior to becoming a European official, Dr. Yvonne was a senior lecturer at the University of Northumbria in the United Kingdom. Joelle, welcome on the podcast. Well, thank you very much, Jaco, for having me on your podcast. And it was very nice to reconnect during our trip to Korea recently. That's right, because I knew you during your time here as the EU's Chaget de Fears and deputy head of delegation in Seoul from 2016 to 2020. It was a very interesting period.

It, of course, included the 2017-2018 missile escalation from North Korea. lots of testing and nuclear testing also. And then in 2018 and 2019, we had summit diplomacy. So from Brussels' point of view, what was the European Union actually trying to achieve on the Korean Peninsula in those years? Yes. Well, thank you very much, Jaco. I would like just to give a bit of context, because for me, what is interesting to point out

is the fact that the mood has changed very much. between the time when I was posted in Seoul and what is happening now. And I think you can only understand the EU response to the situation. Very broadly, if I can go back to that time and see how the situation has evolved. I mean, I know it was a time where there were some missile testing and nuclear tests as well. but I remember this period as being a period of optimism. I mean, the mood for me was rather positive. We thought we could further engage with the DPRK.

If you remember, it was the time of the Winter Olympics. And very symbolically, you had North Korean athletes and South Korean athletes, you know, competing together, okay, albeit in a limited number of events. But that in itself was quite a feat. And also you had this delegation, North Korean delegation that arrived by train, you know, at Sewell Station, that was led by the then president of the Presidium. And also to which Kim Jong-un's sister participated. So for me, when I look back on these years, I mean, obviously it was difficult, but the mood was more optimistic.

And honestly, even in the EU delegation, we thought, well, maybe we can further engage with the DPRK. Now, if you fast forward to today, what you have, what's happened in between, which is also a major factor. You had the COVID pandemic. So that meant, for example, that, you know, the embassies, the foreign embassies were in Pyongyang, were evacuated. For the record, six of our member states had embassies in Pyong, now. they are trying to come back, in particular, you know, Germany and Sweden, but it's not a given. And I think I'm not certain that they will be able to come back. And of course, what's happening in the meantime is the DPRK has become more dependent on Russia.

And I'm sure we will be able to develop that side. And the last point is that Trump was re-elected in 2024, which is also. introducing an element of instability, not just in on the Korean Peninsula, but also, you know, worldwide. So for me, this is what we were trying to achieve, and this is a very difficult context in which we can operate as EU. Yeah. Now, during that time, when you were here in 2016 to 2020, did you feel that the European Union was viewed by Seoul as a real stakeholder on peace issues on the Korean? Peninsula or more as a supportive background partner? Well, that's a very good question. Maybe you should ask your Korean colleagues or our Korean colleagues, you know, where their

perception was. I think there always was a given that you could not achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula or bring back the DPRK, you know, under the non-proliferation treaty umbrella, without the help of the US. So I think that is a factor that's a given that, you know, in those days, nothing could be done without the active involvement of the US. And we saw, you know, basically the US blowing hot and cold, you know, on the Korean Peninsula. And of course, the other factor was China. And on that, you know, I think maybe we were focusing a little bit too much on China. And even at the time we were not paying enough attention or what was happening across the border between the

DPRK and Russia, but that's an apart. So my take would be that although the EU was regarded as an important actor and player, I think it is fair to say that it was probably not regarded as the main actor at the time and probably still isn't, although I hope that we will be able to discuss how we have since then, you know, reinforced our cooperation with the Republic of Korea on those matters. Now, the EU often says that it supports that the big goals of complete verifiable and irreversible denuclearization, human rights improvement, and, of course, a stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. Now, when you arrived in Seoul, how did those broad goals translate into day-to-day diplomatic work with the Republic of Korea government?

Well, a lot of our work was actually dedicated to monitoring. So you could argue that we were more in, well, it's not passive attitude, but it was more like we were trying to see how things would develop. And also we were very much supporting the efforts by President Mujahin at the time to try and seek a rapprochement with... with the DPRK. I mean, since then, we've seen that the DPRK blew up the railway tracks, you know, to the DMZ

and now says that, you know, they're pushing forward with a two-state solution rather than unification. So we were very much supporting President Mujahin's effort to re-enter an active dialogue with the DPRK and to try and promote the peace on the Korean Peninsula. And, of course, we were, like everybody else, we were monitoring what was happening on the other side of the DMZ. Yeah. Is there something in your view that, well, does the EU have a comparative advantage on DPRK issue?

Something that it can do better than Washington, Tokyo or Beijing, or something that it can do that Washington, Tokyo or Beijing cannot do when it comes to the DPRK? That's a very tricky one. I think it would be very arrogant of me to say that, you know, we can do better than the rest of the international community. I think we see our efforts, not just when it comes to the DPRK and the Korean Peninsula, as very much part of the broader action. So, for example, and I'm sure we will be able to discuss, you know, EU sanctions, for example. But all of our efforts, you know, are really full on. the, you know, are really part of the efforts of the international community.

So I don't know if individually the EU, you know, can achieve more than the other players. But I think what we can bring to the discussion is the fact that we are very good at liaising with other key players, probably less so these days with the US, because as you probably know, we've got a very difficult dialogue currently with the Trump administration. But we also, I mean, we've got a very wide network of embassies. We're talking to a lot of people, and in some cases we're doing demarches to support not just our efforts, but also UN efforts in this area. So I think this is definitely something that we can bring to the action, which is we're,

We're a key global player, but I wouldn't say that, you know, our efforts should be seen as individual efforts. We're very much, you know, part of that international community and international community efforts. You just mentioned a diplomatic word there, a French diplomatic word as it happens, Demarche. For our listeners who may not be aware, my understanding of that is a political initiative. Is that the right understanding? Yeah, totally. So for the benefit of your listeners, we have 145 delegation stroke embassies in the world. And we are regularly, when we're posted in those delegations, we are regularly involved in so-called demarches.

And what it is is that we will approach the authorities of a country and we will, most of the time, is really related to UN resolutions or UN efforts. So we will approach the authorities of a given country and we will explain the position of the EU and why it is

important, for example, to support a resolution. So in the casing point, which is the DPRK, where we have both UN sanctions and EU sanctions, we will approach different countries worldwide and we're going to We explain why it is that we're doing, what we're doing, and we are trying to rally that country support, that country's support, you know, to our efforts.

So let's talk a bit about the EU's view of the DPRK over time. So when you first started following Korean issues from an EU perspective, how was the DPRK framed in Brussels? Was it a non-proliferation issue, a human rights issue, or mainly a regional stability issue, or a combination of a combination of? these three. Curious to hear the rest? Become an NK News subscriber today for access to the full episode. Head to NKNews.org slash join for more information. If you're already a subscriber to NKNews, you can listen to full episodes from your

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