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EU chief Ursula von der Leyen invited to Xi Jinping-Emmanuel Macron summit in Paris next week
- One of Europe’s most hawkish leaders towards Beijing is confirmed to meet the Chinese president during his first trip to the continent in five years
- Xi is expected to be in France from May 5 to 7 for a state visit, followed by stops in Serbia and Hungary
Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels
French President Emmanuel Macron has invited Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission chief, to a trilateral meeting with visiting Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week.
Brussels-based von der Leyen is considered one of Europe’s most hawkish leaders on China and is the architect of the bloc’s de-risking strategy towards Beijing.
Von der Leyen’s spokesman, Eric Mamer, confirmed she would be in Paris on May 6 at Macron’s invitation for a meeting with the Chinese president. For Xi, the trip will mark his first trip to Europe in five years.
The commission chief accompanied Macron on his state visit to Beijing last April and was viewed as taking a tougher line with Xi and Premier Li Qiang than the French leader.
Xi is expected to be in France from May 5 to 7 for a state visit.
Earlier on Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi confirmed that France would be the first stop on Xi’s tour. The Chinese leader will travel to Belgrade and Budapest for meetings with the leaders of Serbia and Hungary before returning to China on May 10.
French government sources confirmed that Xi’s trip would start in Paris before continuing through Col du Tourmalet, one of the highest-paved mountain passes in the French Pyrenees, bordering Spain.
Von der Leyen’s presence signals an attempt to “Europeanise” the trip and follows a pattern of diplomatic behaviour from Macron.
China looks to France to foster ‘pragmatic’ EU policy on Beijing
China looks to France to foster ‘pragmatic’ EU policy on Beijing
As well as having von der Leyen in Beijing last year, he invited her predecessor as European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, to Paris during Xi’s last trip to the continent in 2019.
On that occasion, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel also attended. However, her successor, Olaf Scholz, who visited China this month, has not been invited this time around.
Her presence may signify Paris’ support for Brussels’ tougher line on China, which has ratcheted up in recent days. It was von der Leyen who launched the controversial probe into subsidies in the Chinese electric-vehicle sector, with Macron’s strong backing.
Last week, the EU launched dawn raids on the Dutch and Polish premises of Chinese company Nuctech, looking for evidence of state subsidies, under the terms of biting new anti-subsidies regulation.
On Monday, a Chinese business group in the Netherlands said the EU “has been inspecting Chinese companies’ offices for four consecutive days, extracting relevant data from company computers and employees’ mobile phones”.
In addition, Brussels last week launched an investigation into market access in China’s procurement sector and cracked down on the digital policies of big Chinese-owned tech companies TikTok and Shein.
On top of all that, the bloc is roiling from a spate of espionage scandals in which four German nationals were arrested on suspicion of spying for China, including the assistant to a prominent far-right member of the European Parliament.
De-risking and economic security will be on the agenda in Paris, French government sources said, although Macron is also keen to attract Chinese investment in electric-vehicle manufacturing in France.
“Our position is extremely clear: we want Chinese investment in this field in France,” a senior Elysee source said. “That doesn’t just apply to the question of electric vehicles, but more generally to Chinese companies that have cutting-edge technology.”
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Senior French sources said the trip south would be a “more personal day”, as Macron spent time during his childhood in the mountainous region with his grandmother.
One diplomat said the choreography would resemble that of Macron’s trip to China last year during which he and Xi divided their time between the country’s north and south.
For that trip, meetings in Beijing were followed by a day in Guangdong province, where Xi’s father held senior leadership roles for China’s Communist Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including as governor.
Elsewhere on the agenda, France will seek to broach Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Macron poised to raise Chinese firms accused of funnelling sanctioned EU-made goods to the Russian military.
Other items Paris wants to discuss include the Middle East, China’s retaliatory investigation of French brandy products and global issues like climate change, biodiversity, debt reduction and human rights.
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