Good morning. The EU leaders’ potpourri summit lived up to its billing yesterday. “What did we do all day?” remarked one very senior EU official on the way out of the meetings. One thing the EU’s 27 leaders did do, however, was talk about China. Not that you’ll find it in the official record, as our bureau chief points out.
Plus, I hear from Viktor Orbán’s right-hand man on Budapest’s soured relations with Berlin and his general disdain for Germany’s chancellor.
The dragon in the room
Search the conclusions of the first day of the EU summit in Brussels and you will not find any mention of China, writes Sam Fleming.
But the fiendishly difficult balancing act Europe faces in trying to define its relations with Beijing ran through the entirety of the meetings, which kicked off late yesterday morning and ended at the relatively civilised time of 9.20pm.
China, observed one EU diplomat, was the “undercurrent to the summit”. It came up in “every discussion”, added another.
UN secretary-general António Guterres set the tone early, as he warned the EU leaders against isolating China, according to people familiar with the private discussion. Guterres also told them that Beijing considered it still had a positive relationship with the bloc, the people added.
As Guterres is well aware, however, the union is being strongly pulled in the other direction by the US, with hawkishness on China one of the few points of agreement between the Democrats and Republicans.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, echoed that tough tone towards Beijing in a joint statement with President Joe Biden earlier this month, declaring a “common interest” in preventing corporate technology from fuelling military and intelligence capabilities of their “strategic rivals”.
That includes outbound investment — with both Washington and Brussels examining rules to screen flows of corporate cash towards China.
But EU member states are at loggerheads over how far to tack towards the US line given how deeply ingrained their economies are with China, which is the biggest source of EU imported goods and its third-largest export market. Then there are Chinese president Xi Jinping’s recent efforts to portray himself as a peacemaking force in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez made clear his determination to continue engaging with China, announcing a state visit to Beijing shortly before the summit began.
“If you look through all the economy and trade conclusions you won’t see the word ‘China’ written anywhere,” said one senior EU official. “But they are behind every line.”
Chart du jour: Staying woke
In anglophone countries, divides between progressive and conservative values — such as attitudes towards immigration — are increasingly related to age. This does not seem to be the case in continental Europe, writes chief data reporter John Burn-Murdoch.
Missing Merkel
For all his antagonism towards Brussels, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán could count on former German chancellor Angela Merkel to see his side during heated EU meetings. Not so much with her successor — and his apparent inability to control his coalition.
Context: Months after a deal on phasing out combustion engines by 2035 was agreed by member states and the European parliament, Germany announced a last-minute U-turn earlier this month, throwing it into disarray and opening it up to additional demands from other member states.
“This is really an anti-German way of managing European issues,” was the verdict of Balázs Orbán, Viktor’s political director (and no relation). He pointed to Merkel’s ability to both ensure German interests and also “to try to involve every country which is open to reach a compromise”.
“German chancellor [Scholz] was part of that [Merkel] coalition and that power structure. So he’s a wise man. But his political coalition is doing something which is simply not good,” Orbán told the Financial Times yesterday.
Socialist Scholz’s three-party coalition includes the Greens (who supported the combustion engine ban) and the Liberals (who didn’t). Liberal transport minister Volker Wissing has demanded exemptions to the rules for carbon-neutral e-fuels.
Orbán isn’t the first to voice concerns over how Scholz has both struggled to control his coalition partners’ contrasting positions and failed to fill Merkel’s vacuum as the most powerful voice around the EU table.
“In the end, it sends a very negative sign about leadership. And it is raising concerns in Budapest that what is going on here [in Brussels] and in Berlin as well,” Orbán added. “The weakness of the current German government is a problem not only for Hungary and not only for Germany, but for the entire Europe.”
What to watch today
EU leaders meet for second summit day in Brussels, including a briefing from ECB president Christine Lagarde.
Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg meets Norwegian premier Jonas Gahr Støre.
Now read these
Hostage politics: A row over government building extensions threatens to unravel Germany’s coalition.
Brexit island: Spain and the UK are fighting over who should check passports in Gibraltar.
Nuclear option: Hungary is in talks to increase France’s role in its atomic programme — and potentially reducing Russia’s.
Source: Economy - ft.com
