Your Excellency, Ambassador Wu Hongbo,

Dear colleagues and friends, friends of Europe, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for joining us here today to celebrate Europe Day one more time. Let me first of all to thank our sponsors (DP GROUP - Budweiser China - Pernod Ricard CHINA - SUPER BOCK - Vandergeeten - Foreign Spirit Producers Association - CARLSBERG China - CASTEL China), the European Investment Bank, as well as the volunteers from the EU Spouses Circle for helping us organise the reception today. I would also like to thank all EU Member States’ embassies for their cultural booths and the Italian and Portuguese Embassies for sponsoring the performances that we will shortly enjoy.

The past year has been extremely busy between the European Union and China. After over three and a half years of no in-person meetings, EU-China high-level in-person dialogues and meetings resumed rapidly. Following the visit of the President of the European Council in December 2022 and of the President of the European Commission in April 2023, four VPs of the European Commission, including HRVP Borrell, and six European Commissioners have visited China in the last 12 months. And, for the first time in four years the EU-China Summit was held in person in Beijing, on December 7 last year. 

So intense dialogue has resumed in force. And while complex and multifaceted, we think dialogue is important across the whole relationship, including in the parts where we disagree.

Green continues to be the dominant colour of our cooperation, and we have had a constructive dialogue on the environment and climate, both here and in Dubai a few months ago. We believe that we are getting closer to each other on the extremely important issue of climate change, working together in areas like methane or the widening of the ETS, and the future application CBAM.  However, we are still asking our Chinese friends to upgrade their level of ambition, contribute to the funds aimed at helping the developing countries, and stop expanding the use of coal for electricity production. 

We have resumed our Human Rights Dialogue, and High-Level Strategic Dialogue, and large number of mid-level dialogues and visits. This is good news, but again, we do not see that we are moving forward on essential issues.

We have resumed our official High Level People to People Dialogue, yes, but we need to reconstruct real people-to-people exchanges – such as students, tourists, think-tanks and academics which were almost paralyzed due to the pandemic, but which have not recovered anywhere near pre-pandemic levels.

However, while dialogue is good, we cannot have dialogue purely for the sake of dialogue.  Now, it is high time to make progress and make sure these dialogues lead to results. 

And I am afraid there has been very little progress in the more competitive side of our relationship, in trade and investment. The European Chamber of Commerce listed 967 market access barriers in its report in 2022. In 2023 they were 1058. And in Europe, there is increasing pressure to react to what is widely seen as a worsening lack of level playing for our companies and investors. The enormous imbalance in our trade relationship, which is the largest in world’s history, is to a large and increasing extent, the result of a lack of level playing field, which is becoming economically and politically unsustainable. We must make progress and eliminate and lower the barriers that our companies encounter in China lest this becomes politically toxic. The European Union is the largest and most open single market in the world, but, paraphrasing President Von der Leyen in Paris on Monday, we cannot accept to be the ones to absorb the Chinese industrial overproduction caused by massive subsidies and lack of Chinese internal demand and not act to avoid the destruction of European industry.  We just demand reciprocity and a level playing field.

Strong disagreement is also the case when it comes to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. I do not think the Chinese government has yet grasped the damage its position on this aggression has done to its image and reputation in Europe and with our allies. Neither do I think it has grasped how existential this is for us Europeans. I said here last year that I hoped that I would not have to speak about it this year. But, I regret that I still must. Let me underline that:

• When it comes to support for Ukraine, the EU is committed for as long as it takes, whatever it takes.
• No “legitimate security concerns” can justify this aggression.
• We continue to call on China to use all its influence on Russia to end Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, to withdraw its troops from Ukranian territory and to re-establish Ukranian territorial integrity and sovereignty, thus restoring the basic principles of the UN Charter so blatantly violated by the Russian aggression.
• We will continue asking China not to support Russia’s industrial and military base that is used to continue the war of aggression.

On the Middle East, we have had constructive talks, though again we would ask China to do more, especially when it comes to Iran and the Red Sea. 

Europe Day is a day of celebration for the European Union. This year, we not only celebrate that it is 74 years since the Schuman Declaration was presented. We also celebrate that on 1 May, it is 20 years since the citizens of Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia became citizens of the EU.

Democracy, rule of law, the protection of human rights, the welfare state, prosperity- all this is something that the European Union has provided for its almost 450 million people. But above all, the European integration project has led to the longest period of peace and stability in history for its members, something that is now threatened by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. 

This year is important for the European Union. We will have Parliamentary elections in the next month. From November onwards, there will be a change in leadership of the EU institutions. But you can remain certain of one thing. Our engagement with China will not change. The world needs a stable, constructive engagement between China and the EU.

I would therefore wish to propose a toast, and hope that today all our guests will be able to enjoy the diversity of our culture, music, and food.

See the video recording of the speech: