The European Council issued a communiqué on Friday that the heads of state and government of EU member states will gather in Berlin on November 16 for a special summit devoted to EU-China relations. This is a very special and extremely rare “unilateral” summit to discuss bilateral relations without the Chinese side.
The decision to hold this special meeting was made after the 27 countries discussed the human rights situation in China in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. After the meeting, the EU expressed “serious concerns” about the human rights situation in China, with the EU being particularly “concerned” about the situation in Hong Kong and, self-explanatoryly, the situation of ethnic minorities, mainly the Uighur population.
The EU also stressed “the need for a balanced economic relationship” and, ultimately, “reciprocity”. Between Thursday and Friday, the EU invited China to “make good on its earlier commitments to lift trade barriers, improve overcapacity and negotiate within the WTO framework on its subsidies to state-owned enterprises,” the EU said.
The announcement did not specifically list the topics to be discussed at the EU’s special summit with China, but the message from the September 14 video summit between EU leaders and Chinese leader Xi Jinping seems to suggest that EU-China relations will henceforth be more than moderate and ambiguous, with reciprocity in economic trade and less equivocation on human rights. On September 30, Merkel told the German Bundestag that China’s harsh and brutal treatment of ethnic minorities had never before taken such a strong tone. The EU now recognizes China as an “institutional adversary” of the EU.
At the last bilateral summit, EU Council President Michel told Xi Jinping that the EU will not continue to be taken advantage of. “The EU is no longer an arena for others,” and “The EU demands fairer trade relations, more balanced EU-China relations, which means that both sides must compete on a reciprocal and fair basis.”
The video summit was attended by the EU President-in-Office, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and European Commission President Von der Leyen urged China that if it wants to implement Xi Jinping’s expectation at the summit to sign the ‘EU-China Investment Treaty’ by the end of 2020, “China must make concessions, including on market reciprocity and openness.” We take the issue of market access and the removal of trade barriers on the Chinese side seriously,” von der Leyen said.
The EU27 pledged to hold a new summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping next year.
The EU applauded Xi’s pledge at the UN General Assembly to make China carbon-neutral by 2060.
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