Europe live: China’s Xi Jinping calls for closer ties with the EU at opening of Paris talks – as it happened

We are now closing this blog but you can read our story on the trade talks between Xi, Macron and Von der Leyen here.

• Xi Jinping lauded China’s ties with France as a model for the international community as he arrived in Paris amid threats of a trade war over Chinese electric cars and French cognac.

• On his first visit to the EU in five years, China’s president met his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

• Von der Leyen told Xi that both Europe and China have an interest “in the effective functioning of the rules-based international order” but also raised challenges linked to “state-induced overcapacity, unequal market access and overdependencies.”

• Macron said there’s a need to ensure a level playing field for all actors and that the international situation makes EU-China dialogue more important than ever.

• Xi told Macron and von der Leyen that as “two important forces in the world both of us should adhere to the position of partnership, adhere to dialogue and cooperation.”

• Von der Leyen said the “imbalances” caused by state support for Chinese industry leading to cut-cost products threaten jobs in Europe and that “is a matter of great concern.” She also said “Europe will not waver from making tough decisions needed to protect its economy and security.”

• Ahead of Xi’s visit, Human Rights Watch called on Macron to “stand firm on rights in China.”

• Reports Without Borders protested in Paris over the imprisonment of journalists in China.

• Raphaël Glucksmann, a member of the European parliament and the lead socialist candidate in France in the upcoming EU elections, urged Macron to be “firm” against China and “not to remain silent in the face of the crimes” against the Uyghurs.

• The European Commission announced today that after over six years, it will withdraw the so-called Article 7 rule of law sanctions proceedings against Poland.

Europe’s centre-right is calling for a boycott of the Russian president’s inauguration ceremony.

“None of the diplomatic representatives of the EU and its Member States accredited in Russia should participate in the upcoming inauguration ceremony of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president,” the European People’s party group said today.

Meanwhile, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is in Lithuania.

Gitanas Nausėda, the Lithuanian president, said “ensuring prompt deployment of German brigade on permanent basis in Lithuania is our priority.”

“We must focus on fully implementing regional defense plans, rotational air defense, boosting defense investment&bringing Ukraine closer to NATO,” he added.

La France Insoumise’s Manon Aubry made the case that Emmanuel Macron must not only roll out the red carpet for Xi Jinping, but also discuss the trade problem with him.

John O’Brennan, professor and Jean Monnet chair of European integration at Maynooth University, has critiqued the European Commission’s approach to China. “Xi Jinping is the dictator of an increasingly hostile China & should not be welcome in Europe,” he said.

It is legitimate for France and China to each support their domestic industries, but any such policies have to be done fairly and reciprocally, the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said today, Reuters reported.

6 May 202407.31 EDT

Lisa O'Carroll

The EU has restated its readiness to launch a trade war with China over imports of cheap electric cars, steel and cheap solar and wind technology with Ursula von der Leyen warning the bloc will “not waver” from protecting industry and jobs following a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping.

The European Commission chief said that she was “convinced that if the competition is fair” from China, then Europe “will have thriving durable economies”.

But the “imbalances” caused by state support for Chinese industry leading to cut-cost products threaten jobs in Europe and that “is a matter of great concern” she said.

“Europe will not waver from making tough decisions needed to protect its economy and security”, she said.

“Our market is and remains open to fair competition and to investments. But it is not good for Europe if it harms our security and makes us vulnerable,” she added.

“Europe cannot accept the market distorting practices that could lead to deindustrialisation here at home,” she said.

Von der Leyen announced an investigation into subsidies into electric car production in China last September with a European commissioner hinting last week that tariffs could be imposed this summer.

She said “these subsidised products such as electric vehicles or, for example, steel, are flooding the European market”.

The problem, she said, was that “China continues to massively support its manufacturing centre” while “domestic demand is not increasing” leading it to shift its products to the EU, undercutting indigenous industry.

“Poland’s commitment to the restoration of the rule of law is yielding results!” wrote the country’s permanent representation to the EU.

The European Commission announced today that after over six years, it will withdraw the so-called Article 7 rule of law sanctions proceedings against Poland.

The move comes due to a shift in policies in Warsaw, after a government led by Donald Tusk came to office.

“Today, the European Commission has finalised its analysis on the rule of law situation in Poland in the context of the Article 7(1) TEU procedure. The Commission considers that there is no longer a clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law in Poland within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the Treaty on European Union,” the Commission said in a statement.

“Poland has launched a series of legislative and non-legislative measures to address the concerns on independence of the justice system, it has recognised the primacy of EU law and is committed to implementing all the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights related to rule of law including judicial independence,” it added.

“The Commission is therefore informing the Council and the European Parliament of this assessment and of the Commission’s intention to withdraw its Reasoned Proposal from 2017, thereby closing the Article 7 (1) procedure.”

The government of Giorgia Meloni is making strategic use of defamation suits to silence public intellectuals, a philosopher who is being sued by the Italian prime minister’s brother-in-law has claimed.

In the latest of a series of lawsuits drawing on Italy’s comparatively harsh defamation laws, Donatella Di Cesare of Sapienza University in Rome will appear at a criminal court in the Italian capital on 15 May, after a complaint by the agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, over comments she made comparing one of his speeches to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Lollobrigida, who is married to Meloni’s sister and considered one of the PM’s closest allies, sparked controversy in April 2023 when at a trade union conference he called on the country not to “surrender to the idea of ethnic replacement”, which he described as “Italians are having fewer children, we replace them with someone else”.

The trial centres on comments Di Cesare made the same day on the talkshow DiMartedì in which she perceived there to be white supremacist connotations in the term “ethnic replacement”, saying it could be found in the pages of Mein Kampf and in National Socialist ideology.

In his criminal complaint, Lollobrigida said Di Cesare had portrayed him as “a Nazi who glorifies concentration camps and espouses extermination camps as a solution to immigration issues”, which was “not only defamatory but also shameful”.

Read the full story here, by Philip Oltermann and Lorenzo Tondo.

The interior ministers of Germany’s 16 states will hold a special meeting tomorrow to discuss ways to counter a spate of attacks on politicians, a federal interior ministry spokesperson said, Reuters reported.

6 May 202405.33 EDT

Xi Jinping calls for closer ties between EU and China at Paris talks

Lisa O'Carroll

The Chinese president has used his opening remarks on his visit to France to call for closer ties with the EU.

Xi Jinping told Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen that as “two important forces in the world both of us should adhere to the position of partnership, adhere to dialogue and cooperation”.

He said both sides should “carry out strategic collaboration” and promote “stable and healthy development, contribute to world peace and development”.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, told China’s Xi Jinping that we need to ensure a level playing field for all actors, Reuters reported.

Macron said the international situation makes EU-China dialogue more important than ever, and that the sides will discuss Ukraine and the Middle. It is essential we coordinate on these matters, the French leader said.

Speaking in Paris, Ursula von der Leyen thanked Emmanuel Macron for convening the meeting.

“I’m pleased to see you again,” von der Leyen told Xi Jinping.

“The European Union and China want good relations, and given the global weight of China, our engagement is key to ensure mutual respect, to avoid misunderstanding, and to find solutions to global challenges,” the commission president said.

“Both China and the European Union have a shared interest in peace and security, and in the effective functioning of the rules-based international order,” she said, adding that “we are determined to stop the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.”

Von der Leyen also pointed to challenges in the trade relationship.

“We have a substantial EU-China economic relationship. Our daily trade volume is around €2.3bn. But this relationship is also challenged, for example through state-induced overcapacity, unequal market access and overdependencies. These are all issues that we will address today,” the Commission chief said.

“In December, I remember that you told us, President Xi: ‘EU-China relations are essential to global peace, security and prosperity’. This remains true today. That is why it is so important that we speak here today on how to cooperate where our interests align as well as how to address responsibly the issues on which we have concerns,” she added.

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