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The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the trade conflict between European countries and Japan which occurred in the last quarter of the 20th century. In the 1930s, when many countries suffered from the Great Depression, Japan’s exports expanded remarkably all over the world, leading to serious trade conflicts. After Japan’s defeat in 1945, its economy recovered particularly well in the High Economic Growth Era (1955-1973).In the latter half of the 1970s, when a serious depression hit Western advanced countries, the European Community (EC) began to criticize relentlessly the inflow of Japanese goods. In the 1980s, as the trade conflict between the United States of America and Japan became serious, trade friction among EC and Japan also continued. However, the countries in the EC did not always al l have the same attitudes toward Japan. The United Kingdom welcomed Japanese companies which built their factories in the country, while France and Italy maintained restrictions of import from Japan. The “Battle of Poitiers” that was waged on the import of Japanese video tape recorders was a noteworthy episode that epitomized the severely negative attitude of France towards Japanese imports.However, around the time of the formation of the European Union (EU) in November 1993, the era of conflict was gradually calming, and the EU and Japan made more efforts to build a more friendly relationship with each other. A good example is the abolishment of discriminative quantity restrictions to Japan in 1993. After the establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995 industrial ties between the EU and Japan were further strengthened.