Brussels, 25/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 25 April in Beijing, accompanied by nine commissioners: Benita Ferrero-Waldner (external relations), Peter Mandelson (trade), Stavros Dimas (environment), Andris Piebalgs (energy), Janez Potocnik (research), Louis Michel (development), Vladimír Spidla (education), Meglena Kuneva (consumers) et László Kovács (tax and customs), the president of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and the Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao inaugurated the new high level dialogue mechanism on the economy and trade. At the end of the first morning work session, Mr Barroso informed the press that they were there to, “confirm and foster our strategic partnership with China”.
Under the guidance of Mr Mandelson and the Chinese vice prime minister, Wang Qishan, the work was expected to continue on Friday afternoon. This first session covered a wide range of dossiers: trade and investment, sustainable development, innovation, hi-tech, intellectual property and trade facilitation. In the future it will also cover market access, transport and questions on standards and regulation. At the end of the exchange of views in the morning, Mr Barroso mentioned the “useful progress” made in the discussions, but added, nevertheless that, “as premier Wen just said, bilateral trade volumes are impressive and are increasing every year by 20-25%. But there are major imbalances and we both agree on the necessity to rebalance our bilateral trade”. And he gave assurances that discussions were continuing ahead of the forthcoming EU-China Summit in France in the second half of the year.
The Commission President also listed the agreements signed or joint actions decided on at this first session: - in science and technology, the parties signed an agreement of the peaceful use of nuclear energy and a letter of intent for the ICARE project, a joint institute for clean and renewable energy, which aims to train Chinese experts and develop common technology; the parties also agreed to sign an R&D cooperation agreement, covering energy, climate change, biotechnology and health; in addition, the parties expressed the wish that the EU-China law School in Beijing will open in time for academic year 2008-2009; - on climate change, the parties had a deep exchange of views on negotiations for a post-Kyoto agreement; the Commission welcomed the indications given by Beijing of its readiness to its domestic emission reduction policies in an international agreement, provided that developed countries commit to mid-term reduction targets for 2020 and an effective financial mechanism is put in place to promote technology transfer; Barroso also announced that a joint meeting of Chinese and European climate change experts , including members of his own advisory group; - on energy, the parties agreed to sign, during the next summit, a financing agreement for the Euro-China Clean Energy Centre (EC2) in Beijing - they also agreed to set up a regular dialogue on energy efficiency standards in construction and to pursue cooperation on carbon capture and storage; - on the subject of product safety, the parties agreed to deepen their cooperation. The Commission welcomed China's adoption of a rapid warning system for unsafe goods similar to the European system; - on combating piracy and counterfeiting, they agreed to launch an action plan during the summit and to strengthen customs cooperation and the application of intellectual property rights; - on environmental cooperation, the parties noted that the value of projects being developed under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) amounts to some €5 billion. Furthermore, they agreed to set up, by end 2008, a cooperation mechanism to combat illegal logging. Finally, a new €15 million EU-China environmental governance programme will be launched during the next EU-China summit. (E.H.)