The European Union is willing to walk away from crunch trade talks with China if meaningful progress is not made, its ambassador to Beijing suggested on Friday.
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The two sides are discussing the EU’s tariffs on Chinese imports of electric vehicles with a view to setting a minimum price, as well as Chinese investments in the EV supply chain.
However, the ambassador, Jorge Toledo, warned during a panel discussion: “We are having technical negotiations in Brussels … They are not making progress.
“They are not making progress so much so that we were supposed to hold the high-level economic [and] trade dialogue, and I’m afraid we are not going to hold it because … in order to hold it, we need progress. We need deliverables.”
The economic dialogue is one of a series of meetings supposed to take place in the run-up to a summit slated for July 24 in Beijing.
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These preliminary events are supposed to be used to agree the agenda for the summit and produce outcomes that the leaders can announce – at least in theory, although in recent years the main event has seen more sparring than deal making.