BRUSSELS, March 31 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The European Commission has defended this Friday that Ursula Von der Leyen’s speech in which she asked the Twenty-seven for a future strategy with China is in line with the heads of state and government and has confirmed contacts with the French president, Emmanuel Macron , and the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, ahead of his trip to Beijing next week.
At a press conference from Brussels, community spokesman Eric Mamer pointed out that Von der Leyen’s speech, in which he warned of Beijing’s assertive dynamics but at the same time called for dialogue and cooperation, put on the table the changes that The EU has to deal with its relations with China and how the situation in the second world power “forces a new thought”, especially in economic matters.
In this sense, Mamer has stressed that the opinion of the head of the European Executive is in line with that of European leaders. “These are discussions that take place regularly at the summits,” she indicated, later detailing that she was in contact with the leaders of France and Spain.
The German conservative spoke with Macron, with whom she will travel to Beijing next week, and with Sánchez, who has staged the first visit by a European leader to China since the president, Xi Jinping, met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow to discuss peace in Ukraine.
This Thursday in a speech at the German ‘think tank’ MERICS, Von der Leyen denounced that China seeks a “systemic change in the international order” that places it at the center and indicated its intention to “promote an alternative vision of the world order”.
In addition, in economic matters, he criticized the “explicit merger” of the military and commercial sectors in China, apart from lamenting unequal economic relations between Europe and China because of the “state capitalist system of China.”
In this sense, the head of the Community Executive called for the unity of the EU to manage the future relationship with Beijing, insisting that, in any case, the strategy must go through reducing risks and economic dependencies, since “it is not viable , nor is it in the interest of Europe, to disassociate itself from China”.
“Our relations are not black or white, and our response cannot be either,” he explained after pointing out that China is still a “vital trading partner” that represents 9 percent of European exports and 20 percent of imports. to the block.
