EU Ambassador to China: Premier Li’s EU visit to bring new impetus to China-EU ties

2017-06-01
CGTN

EU ambassador to China Han Dietmar Schweisgut speaks with CGTN reporter Zou Yun.[Photo/CGTN]

Premier Li Keqiang is scheduled to meet with the EU President at the China-EU leaders’ meeting. CGTN reporter spoke with EU ambassador to China Han Dietmar Schweisgut about his expectations for the summit.

Ambassador Schweisgut said that they have started the preparations quite a while ago, and he expects the meeting will bring tangible results to China-EU relations.

“On both sides, we have expectations that this will be what I sometimes call ‘summit of deliverables’, we want to achieve something. Our expectation would be to strengthen cooperation in the political and security fields.”

Ambassador Schweisgut said the talks between Premier Li and the EU president will be covering a wide range of issues, such as crisis in Africa, tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and global security. Schweisgut said among all the topics that will be touched upon, he mostly expects to see concrete steps on pushing forward economic and trade cooperation.

“We will also talk about how to increase our economic exchange to our mutual benefits, and that covers a whole range of issues, investment, trade, connectivity. We will also discuss concrete issues on how to improve our investment clement. I expect the summit to give a push to the negotiations which have been ongoing for quite a while on a comprehensive agreement on investment.”

On the Belt and Road Initiative, Ambassador Schweisgut said there’s a need for enhancing connectivity among countries. This is also why back in 2015 at the China-EU leaders’ meeting, EU countries set up a connectivity platform to see how to explore synergies between the initiatives of both sides.

A key factor that will impact the future of China-EU trade is whether EU will implement obligations stipulated in Article 15 of the protocol on China’s accession to the WTO. Schweisgut went on to say that anti-dumping cases only take up a tiny portion of China-EU trade relations. He said that the EU will fully respect requirements under WTO obligations, and he’s confident that the new rules will comply with WTO rules and regulations.