Brussels, 21/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - The 14th annual summit between the EU and China, scheduled to take place in Tianjin on Tuesday 25 October 2011, has been postponed until further notice at the last minute because a second eurozone debt crisis summit will be held next week, probably on Wednesday (in addition to the one in Brussels on Sunday 23 October). Beijing is not unhappy about the news, hoping that the EU27's leaders will finally make a root-and-branch overhaul of public finance and budget policy and set an example to the world.
On Friday 21 October 2011, a press release issued in the morning by the department of the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, explained that because of the future meetings of the European Council and eurozone heads of state, the EU-China Summit has been put back. The decision was taken during over the phone by Van Rompuy and the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao.
Van Rompuy apologised about the inconvenience, but Wen was understanding. The Chinese foreign ministry points out, however, that he had asked the EU to make a root-and-branch overhaul of its public finance and budget policy. The Chinese prime minister said: “Apart from urgent measures to address these problems, the key is to undertake systematic and fundamental fiscal and financial reform. This will demand extraordinary political courage and judgement, and will demand consensus among all sides. The most urgent task is to take decisive measures to prevent the debt crisis from spreading further and avoid financial market turbulence, a recession and fluctuations in the euro”. China's leader hoped that Europe would turn its political will into tangible, effective action.
The 14th EU-China Summit was due to focus on talks to sign an investment deal, which China might make conditional upon the EU recognising it as a full market economy. The 13th summit, held in Brussels on 6 October 2010, was stormy, with Europe's leaders taking a hard line and openly criticising the undervaluation of the Chinese currency, the yuan, unfair Chinese trade practices and demanding progress on human rights two days before the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize 2010 to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. (EH/transl.fl)