The EU Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, and the Chinese Vice Premier, Liu He, held the 9th EU-China High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue on Tuesday 19 July. This is an opportunity for the EU to remind Beijing of its concerns about the Chinese business environment for EU companies. According to the European Commission, the EU recalled “that measures of economic coercion, including against Lithuania, are unacceptable”. The EU Trade Commissioner also raised the issue of industry subsidies and overcapacity.
According to Sabine Weyand, Director General of DG Trade at the Commission, “a lot of issues have piled up since the last High-Level Economic Dialogue in 2020. They require determined follow-up”. According to her, it is crucial to talk with China.
This is also the opinion of the European employers’ association, BusinessEurope: “Cooperation is necessary in areas such as climate policy and standardisation but both sides need to show political willingness and commitment to achieve concrete results”, says the organisation’s Chair, Fredrik Persson. BusinessEurope published a position paper on EU-China relations on 19 July.
See the document: https://aeur.eu/f/2ox
On the other hand, the EU also expressed the importance of working together with China to tackle the challenges caused by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
At the EU-China summit on 1 April, it was difficult for EU leaders to obtain clear guarantees from their Chinese partner (see EUROPE 12924/1).
Beijing has assured that it wants to cooperate to ensure the stability of global markets and to tackle food insecurity around the world.
The two partners agreed to prevent disruptions to supply chains. This requires transparency and an exchange of information on the supply of certain critical materials.
The High-Level Dialogue also provided an opportunity to discuss financial services, in the presence of the European Commissioner for Financial Services, Mairead McGuinness. China has pledged to ensure that its future regulations will not affect the ability of European lending companies to provide services in China.
Finally, the EU and China agreed that the next High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue will take place in 2023. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)