Brussels, 14/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - As the Luxembourg Presidency announced on Thursday, a “strategic discussion on China and its neighbours” is on the agenda of the Gymnich-type meeting of foreign ministers (see other article). If the ministers are set to take no formal decision, they will discuss the issue of the relationship between the lifting of the embargo on arms sales to Beijing and not only human rights in China, but also the stability of the Pacific region. Sources close to the Presidency and to Javier Solana point out that last December's Council gave the Luxembourg Presidency a mandate to finish the work, “so that a decision on lifting the embargo can be made” by the end of June. According to Eldar Subasic, the spokesperson to Luxembourg foreign minister Jean Asselborn, “the Presidency is still working on reinforcing the code of conduct” (which governs arms exports) “and the toolbox” (special measures applied to countries previously subject to arms embargos): work is said to have “made good headway” and the Presidency hopes to conclude, to allow a decision during its mandate.
Although the new White Paper published on Wednesday by Beijing on “China's progress in human right in 2004” talks of progress, the EU is still waiting for China to ratify the United Nations convention on political and civil rights, which it signed in 1998. But the guarantee that China will ensure the stability of the Pacific region is also a major issue for the Europeans. In this light, the adoption of an anti-secession law by the Chinese National Assembly in mid-March, providing for the use of force should Taiwan declare its independence, and nationalistic tension currently brewing between China and Japan, will not make the Presidency's work any easier, and have in fact helped to swell the ranks of the Member States opposed to the lifting of the embargo. After the anti-secession law was adopted, and in the face of the opposition of the American administration (which fears the strategic unbalancing of the Pacific region and criticises human rights violations) and threats of commercial tit-for-tat brandished by Congress, the Union is very much divided: on the one hand, there are the Member States in favour of the speedy lifting of the embargo, led by France and Germany, and on the other, the UK, Sweden and Denmark, together with Poland and the Czech Republic, which are disinclined to lift the embargo and/or would like the decision to be postponed, in their concerns about displeasing Washington. The decision to lift the embargo, which calls for Council unanimity and according to the time lines set last December, should be made as soon as possible under the Luxembourg Presidency, but could be postponed to 2006. It is worth bearing in mind that the UK is apparently not keen to inherit this unwieldy dossier when it takes over the Presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2005.
The EU also hopes to enter “strategic dialogue” with the US over China and stability in the Pacific region, to avoid threats to the currently warm transatlantic relations. Mr Solana is to visit Washington at the end of April or early May, with this in mind.