At a plenary session in Strasbourg on Tuesday 8 July, MEPs called on the European Commission to seize the opportunity presented by the EU-China summit at the end of July to recalibrate bilateral relations. In particular, the European Union must no longer be strategically dependent on Chinese exports of critical raw materials, according to MEPs.
At the start of the debate, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, explained that she would be taking the message to the summit that “we need to make real progress – and find fair solutions – on the issues where we have been deadlocked for far too long, predictability and reliability”.
Bilateral relations have been strained for several weeks, even prompting the Chinese hosts to cut short the summit, which was initially due to take place over two days (see EUROPE 13674/3).
The President of the Commission justified one of the EU’s latest measures to restrict the access of Chinese medical devices to European public procurement worth more than €5 million (see EUROPE 13675/19). “It is a matter of basic reciprocity”, she insisted. “Goods and services that are made in China get an automatic 20% price advantage in [Chinese, editor’s note] public bids. This is simply not fair”.
In the same vein, Yannis Maniatis (S&D, Greek) called on the EU to address the market distortion caused by public subsidies. “The European Commission must use all the tools at its disposal to ensure that we protect the European manufacturing industry”, he said.
He also noted that the restrictions on rare earth exports adopted by China have seriously affected European industries.
On this point, Daniele Polato (ECR, Italian) called for this year’s 50th anniversary of EU-China relations to be used to “reflect on the mistakes we have made in Europe” and to re-emphasise the EU’s economic sovereignty.
Engin Eroglu (Renew Europe, German) also regretted that 98% of the rare earths the EU requires, actually come from China. “The only way to put ourselves in a better negotiating position is to exploit our mineral resources ourselves. This is why we need a European mining programme, a mining task force”, he argued.
Support for Russia. On the security front, Nicolás Pascual De la Parte (EPP, Spanish), like other MEPs from all political backgrounds, considered that China’s continued support for Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine was unthinkable.
“Our relations with China cannot be normalised as long as it continues to support Putin’s policies”, he said.
Ms von der Leyen herself has been unequivocal on this issue. “China’s unyielding support for Russia is creating heightened instability and insecurity here in Europe. We can say that China is de-facto enabling Russia’s war economy. We cannot accept this”.
In a similar vein, Engin Eroglu called on the President of the European Commission to address remarks made by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on 2 July to the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, during the EU-China strategic dialogue in Brussels. Mr Wang explained that it was not in China’s interest for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine, since, in his view, the United States would then turn its attention to Asia (see EUROPE 13674/3). (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)