Less than three months after the summit on 22 June, EU leaders - European Council President Charles Michel, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the German EU Council Presidency - and Chinese President Xi Jinping will again discuss EU-China relations on Monday 14 September by videoconference.
While the Leipzig summit, originally scheduled for the same date with all European leaders, was postponed sine die because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the leaders were keen to meet to take stock of progress in their relations.
The videoconference is likely to focus mainly on trade. While the High Level Economic and Trade Dialogue held in July had made progress on the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, notably on the level playing field, EU leaders will this time urge the Chinese President to accelerate discussions in other areas in order to conclude negotiations for such an agreement.
“On Monday, we hope to agree on a detailed roadmap to resolve our remaining differences in order to conclude the negotiations by the end of the year. We see these negotiations as a real test of the level of Chinese commitments in the areas of reciprocity and level playing field”, explained a European source. According to this source, progress needs to be made, in particular with regard to the transparency of subsidies, state-owned enterprises and forced transfers of technology.
The EU would also like its goods to have the same access to the Chinese market as the Americans. In the meantime, on Monday morning, ahead of the video conference, the EU and China will sign an agreement on the protection of geographical indications.
Europe and China are also expected to discuss climate change and EU leaders could call on China to commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, becoming climate neutral by 2060 and halting the construction of coal plants.
The two sides could discuss digital issues, including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, product safety and digital taxation.
The response to the Covid-19 pandemic, both in terms of health and socio-economic recovery, will also be discussed. Europe will raise the issue of global cooperation in the field of research on treatments and vaccines and will call on Beijing to participate fully in the independent WHO review of lessons learned from the international health response to Covid-19.
Finally, European leaders may raise the issues of human rights and the rule of law in China, the situation in Hong Kong and tensions in the East China Sea. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)