In this master thesis work European Union as well as some of it’s member states (Latvia, Slovak Respublic and Lithuania’s) bilateral relations with Japan are analysed.

The main goal of this work is to foresee theoretical perspectives of bilateral Lithuania – Japan relations and to find out the similarities and differences between Lithuania’s and other European Union countries (Slovak’s Republic and Latvia’) in foreign policy towards Japan and to point out the reasons which determines possibly different foreign policy of those countrie’s towards Japan.

The analysis of official and non-official documents method as well as comparitive analysis between Latvia’s and Lithuania’s foreign policy towards Japan is used in this work.

During the exploratory process of this work the conclusion was made that despite the fact that there are mechanisms in bilateral EU and Japan relation’s policy to represent common EU member states issues, but the resposibility of qualitive bilateral relations between each single EU member state and Japan relies on this country.

In order to fulfil the mentioned primary goal of this work the reasons of dinamics of bilateral Lithuania – Japan relations are analyzed. To achieve this a strategic choice theory is used in this work. This is because it best represents the inside and outside motives of the countrie’s foreign policy strategy choices.

In the analitical part of this work strategic choice theory is used to explain the differences between Latvia’s and Lithuania’s foreign policy towards Japan. The inside and outside motives which influences Lithuania’s foreign policy towards Japan are mentioned: inside motives are cultural and language differences between Lithuania and Japan as well as personal motivation of Lithuania’s foreign policy actors and the outside motive is Lithuania’s possibility and ambition to become the “representative” of the EU and NATO in the former Soviet block countries in the Eastern Europe.

Findings at the end of this work has a dirrect connection with the tasks fomulated. Some of the primary one’s are: to determine main mechanisms of the EU-Japan bilateral relations; to check the reasons of the former and present Lithuania’s relations with Japan; to foresee the future perspectives of Lithuania – Japan bilateral cooperation.

After presenting the findings of this work, the recomendations for boosting Lithuania – Japan relations are suggested.

Raktažodžiai: bilateral relations, evolution, foreign policy priorities, perspectives