Chinese Prime Minister WEN Jiabao visited the European Commission on 30 January upon invitation of the President of the European Commission, Jos Manuel Barroso. The Prime Minister was accompanied by YANG Jiechi, Foreign Affairs Minister, ZHANG Ping, Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, CHEN Deming, Minister of Commerce, and XIE Fuzhan, Director of the Research Office of the State Council.
The Chinese delegation met with President Barroso and Commissioners Ferrero-Waldner, Dimas, Almunia, Potočnik and Ashton. They discussed overall EU-China relations, the international financial crisis and climate change. Nine agreements were signed on this occasion to strengthen EU-China cooperation in several fields (see annex). President Barroso underlined the importance that the Commission, as well as the European Union, attach to strengthening our already broad ties with China and invite China to engage with the EU in addressing two of the global challenges of 2009: overcoming the economic and financial crisis and reaching a comprehensive agreement on climate change in Copenhagen. Premier Wen and President Barroso agreed that the XI EU-China Summit should be convened as soon as possible under Czech Presidency of the EU. This was confirmed later by Czech Prime Minister Topolanek at the official lunch. This would open the way to another Summit to be held in China still in 2009.
President Barroso and Premier Wen confirmed the mutual interest on pursuing the High Level Dialogue on economy and trade, and agreed on a second round to take place in April. Both parties expressed commitments to keep open markets, in the context of the current financial and economic crisis. In this sense, consultations on the continuation of the Doha round, as well as the Macroeconomic Dialogue should also be developed.
“This visit was a good opportunity to reinforce EU-China relations and gave an impulse to our bilateral cooperation as well as our activities in facing the current global challenges like the international economic and financial crisis,” says President Barroso. “The year of the Ox, which represents hard-work and patience, started this week and is a very appropriate opportunity to make progress in our ongoing bilateral negotiations on a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, to strengthen our dialogue on political and human rights issues, as a way of improving mutual understanding, and to achieve further successes in our bilateral cooperation”.
“Following last year’s visit of the Commission to Beijing today’s meeting provided an excellent and timely opportunity to discuss not only bilateral cooperation but wider foreign policy issues of mutual interest and ways how the EU and China can work together in bringing more security to crisis regions,” says Benita Ferrrero-Waldner, Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy. “Our bilateral relationship is characterised by deep and growing cooperation in a broad range of areas. This can be seen in the host of agreements that we signed in the margins of today’s meeting.”
For the list of Agreements signed and further information please visit the page.
D.C.