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China-EU investment deal should stay in ‘deep freezer’, outgoing trade chief warns
Sabine Weyand says the 2020 agreement with China is obsolete as Brussels weighs action on ‘macroeconomic imbalances’
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Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels
The EU’s outgoing top trade official used her departing appearance at the European Parliament to pour cold water on the prospect of an investment deal with China, hinting instead that new weapons for dealing with Chinese “macroeconomic imbalances” could be on the way.
Sabine Weyand, who is leaving her role as the EU’s director general for trade after a seven-year tenure, said the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment – signed in the last days of 2020 but frozen soon after in a row over human rights – “was an agreement from another time and for another China”.
The German official leaves her post at the end of the month. She quoted the EU’s former competition chief Margrethe Vestager, saying: “If something has been in the deep freezer for a long time, you shouldn’t take it out and serve it again.”
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The remarks come as Beijing floats the prospect of reviving the deal in engagements with EU leaders. It has also proposed embarking on talks around a free-trade agreement, a suggestion that was embraced by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last month.
Others, including Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, have said China’s close ties with Russia would be a “disqualifying factor” on a potential deal.
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Weyand instead made a rare public confirmation that the commission was considering new trade tools to deal with the imbalances stemming from “the impact China’s economic model has on the rest of the world”.
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