Brussels, 13/11/2003 (Agence Europe) - In the presence of Commissioner Margot Wallstrom and her Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua, on Wednesday in Peking, the European Union and China signed a political agreement for strengthening cooperation on environmental issues. This agreement will be valid two weeks after the appeal was launched in this direction at the Bilateral Summit on 31 October.
Just when everyone has their eyes trained on China, the person in charge of common environmental policy arrived in Peking and said that they were going to work together to ensure that China chooses the path of sustainable development. This new Sino-European dialogue, in which one of the main objectives is to cooperate in development and the implementation of multilateral agreements in the field of the environment, will cover a series of general problem areas in the perspective of ensuring the follow-up of action arranged that the World Summit of Johannesburg. The partners also seek to collaborate on practical efforts to deal with climate change in the framework of the Kyoto Protocol. Bilaterally, the Europeans and China want to strengthen cooperation in the fields identified by the parities in light of the lessons learned in the joint projects on energy supply to industry, energy efficiency, local industrial restructuring, reinforcing local government capacity and the clarification of production methods, with China favouring strengthening capacity, training, conservation of biodiversity, management of water resources and standards for vehicle emissions. The partners already concluded, at the end of the first six months in 2003, a cooperation project in inspecting vehicle emissions, which is part of the three main objectives in the Union strategic document on China. In this context, the ongoing projects cover LIEP, the environment and energy, cooperation with environmental management, with two others being prepared.
Initially dialogue is concentrated between senior officials at the European Commission and the Chinese department in charge of environmental protection (SEPA). They will be in charge of cooperation and future arrangements, including the preparation of dialogue at a ministerial level. Ms Wallstrom, whose visit is a first for a European Commissioner for the environment, has invited Minister Xie to Brussels next summer to ratify the initial progress that has been made.