EU foreign ministers meet in Sweden

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The focus of the talks is continued support for the country attacked by Russia. It should, at least marginally, also include proposals from the European Commission for an eleventh package of sanctions against Russia. It is mainly intended to prevent the circumvention of the punitive measures already issued.

The second main topic of the meeting will be EU relations with China. In a keynote speech at the end of March, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, called for a new balance in relations with the world’s most populous country. She stressed that the EU must become more independent and minimize economic risks, for example in the supply chains of European companies. However, it is not in the EU’s interest to disengage from China.

The topic is explosive, not least because of the country’s stance on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. To date, the government in Beijing has not condemned the invasion. Chinese companies are accused of being involved in circumventing EU sanctions against Russia. This is one of the reasons why the European Commission has now proposed the eleventh package of sanctions to create the legal possibility to restrict selected exports to certain third countries for suspected sanctions circumvention.

According to diplomats, however, the initiative is not entirely positively assessed by all EU member states. The danger is that some member states do not have the courage or will to put countries like China on such a list because of possible retaliatory measures. In this case, the tool would help only if its mere existence served as a deterrent. This is because the approval of all 27 EU states would be required for each country and product to be listed.

Germany is one of the countries for which China is economically very important. The People’s Republic was Germany’s most important trading partner – ahead of the US – for the seventh time in a row last year. According to preliminary information from the Federal Bureau of Statistics, goods worth 298.6 billion euros were traded in 2022 (exports and imports).

For Germany, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) travels to the meeting in a conference center near the Swedish capital Stockholm. A ministerial forum on cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region will also be organized on Saturday at the same location. But Baerbock wants to be represented by Secretary of State Tobias Lindner.

(SDA)

Source: Blick