Economic relations between the European Union and China, on the agenda of the European Council on 18 and 19 June (see EUROPE 13890/1), were also debated in the European Parliament chamber on Wednesday 17 June in Strasbourg. The majority of the political groups stressed the need to rebalance trade with Beijing.
European Commissioner for Trade Maroš Šefčovič, who was invited to the debate, recalled that the EU strategy remained based on de-risking rather than decoupling. “China remains an essential partner,” he stressed, while arguing for more intensive dialogue in order to rebalance trade and investment relations with Beijing. The Commissioner also defended greater use of trade defence instruments and the diversification of partnerships, notably through the free trade agreements concluded by the Union.
The leader of the EPP group, Manfred Weber (German), said during his speech that the trade deficit with China had reached more than €1 billion per day. “This deficit is simply unacceptable. China is flooding European markets with its overproduction capacity and this must stop,” he hammered home. He notably called for greater vigilance on the part of European companies regarding risks linked to intellectual property rights and argued for stronger coordination with the United States in response to China.
On the left of the chamber, however, the president of the S&D group, Iratxe García Pérez (Spanish), warned against a binary reading of international relations. “Anyone watching this debate might think that, for Europe, China is bad and the United States is good, but the world is far more complex. [...] We must be serious when we talk about EU sovereignty,” she said, considering that European sovereignty required an autonomous approach vis-à-vis the two major powers.
The president of the Renew Europe group, Valérie Hayer (French), also rejected any logic of systematic alignment with Washington. In a context marked by growing rivalry between the United States and China, she called on the Union to defend above all its own economic and strategic interests.
Commissioner Šefčovič reaffirmed the Commission’s determination to maintain regular dialogue with Beijing in order to find solutions to these imbalances, described as “unsustainable” by the European Commission at the end of May (see EUROPE 13877/15). (Original version in French by Juliette Verdes)