The Arctic Council at its biannual meeting on Wednesday (15 May) in Sweden allowed in six new observer states, but deferred the EU's application until a later date. China, along with India, Italy, Japan, South Korea and ...

Iceland on Monday (15 April) became the first European country to sign a free trade agreement with China after six years of negotiations. A joint-statement notes the two sides want “to enhance their exchange and ...

Greenlanders go to the polls on Tuesday (12 March) in a vote that will attract an inordinate amount of outside interest for a semi-autonomous territory of just 57,000 people. The interest is largely due to climate ...

It was just eight years ago. In 2004, Romano Prodi, an Italian economics professor from Bologna, left one of the most powerful posts in Europe. In his five year term as President of the European Commission, he oversaw ...

After leadership transition, China will move toward liberal reforms, but in the uncertain world such changes require tough hands. How will the new Beijing approach Europe? As the Eurozone slipped into its second ...

Perspectives for a European security strategy towards Asia: Views from Asia, Europe and the US. By Gustaaf Geeraerts and Eva Cross (eds.). VUBPress; 309 pages; €37.74 (excl. VAT and shipping) at EUbookshop.com. As one ...

Chinese leader Wen Jiabao has bluntly told the EU to drop its ban on arms sales. He made the call in his opening remarks to top EU officials Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso at a summit in a stately home in ...

China is "disappointed" and the European Commission feels "regret" before the EU-China summit has even begun. The prickly remarks before the top-level meeting in Brussels on Thursday (20 September) came after a ...

As tensions rise between Asia’s economic giants, China and Japan, over a small group of uninhabited mini-islands in the East China Sea, reaction from the EU remains conspicuous by its absence. The world’s second and ...

With Belgium's spy-catcher-in-chief, the VSSE's Alain Winants, speaking out to international media about espionage in the EU capital, TargetBRUSSELS and EUobserver profile the cases that came out in the open in recent ...

"I stopped meeting him for lunch because all he did was ask questions and he never said anything about himself," a diplomat on the EU Council's working group for post-Soviet countries once told this website about his ...

EUobserver: In what way does the VSSE co-operate with the EU institutions and Nato? Alain Winants: Belgium hosts the institutions of two major international bodies - the EU and Nato, which is a great privilege but it's ...

China will come to Europe this week (17-24 September) in the form of an EU-China summit, a separate bilateral business summit and a meeting of Chinese and European mayors. Top brass will be out on both sides. Premier ...

China’s ambassador to the EU, Wu Hailong, on Wednesday (12 September) refuted a recent Bloomberg report that hackers linked to his government had broken into the email accounts of 11 senior EU officials, including one ...

The UK hosts all the "world class" universities in Europe according to a study by QS, a US-based firm which helps business graduates to get jobs. The world ranking, out on Tuesday (11 September), put Cambridge ...

Apart from those spearheading the complaint, people within the European solar sector have expressed little enthusiasm for an EU investigation into the possible dumping of solar panels from China which may result in the ...

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on Thursday (30 August) offered vague promises to buy bonds from troubled euro-countries, but said that it is ultimately up to Germany and France to solve the crisis. "The European debt ...

Ever since Europe’s economy began spiralling downwards a growing number of people from Dublin to Athens is taking to learning the language of opportunity: Chinese. Aggregate data are not available, but figures from ...

China and the EU are facing a trade war after a group of European solar panel producers this week lodged an anti-dumping complaint, sparking immediate threats of retaliation. The complaint comes from Germany's ...

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton believes Beijing is ready to step up co-operation after a meeting with her Chinese counterpart. Her assessment comes after Dai Bingguo, a top-level Chinese foreign policy ...

Lately EU integration seems to have become a wrestling match between those member states large enough to impose conditionality on their partners and those member states large enough to escape this interference. No ...

China wants to hold human rights talks with the EU just once a year and to curtail discussion of individual cases. Wang Xining, the Chinese EU embassy's spokesman, told EUobserver the meetings should take place "maybe ...

China might impound European aircraft if Chinese airlines are punished for missing Friday's (15 June) deadline on CO2 data, a top executive has said. Wei Zhenzhong, the head of the China Air Transport Association, a ...

In what has been called “a definite turning point,” China’s direct investment in Europe over the last couple of years has multiplied by a factor 10, according to a new study. EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht ...

With the aim of better understanding each other, members of the five big political groups in the European Parliament have met with members of the one big political group in the National People's Congress of China, in ...

Most EU firms based in China plan to invest even more, but one in five might leave due to red tape and rising labour costs, a survey says. The report - by the EU chamber of commerce in Beijing and Roland Berger Strategy ...

The European Parliament adopted a non-legislative resolution on the imbalance of trade relations between the EU and China on Wednesday (23 May). The imbalance, claims the report drafted by Liberal MEP Marielle de Sarnez ...

The European Commission has indicated that China is responsible for a ban on media questions to vice premier Li Keqiang during his two-day visit to the EU capital. Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde on Wednesday (2 ...

China has highlighted access to arms technology and less criticism on human rights as two priorities on a visit to the EU capital by its new-leader-in-waiting, Li Keqiang. The country's ambassador to the EU, Wu Hailong, ...

According to Professor Dent, the EU has no choice but to become closer to China. In this video, he talks about the interdependency between the EU and China and the need to bridge the cultural gap.

In a room behind closed doors in the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, the EU and China on Wednesday (18 April) declared their mutual intent to bolster cultural ties between average people. "Both sides would ...

China's economy so far this year grew slower than ever in the last three years, spelling bad news for its biggest trading partner, the European Union. The second-biggest economy in the world grew by a mere 8.1 percent ...

Chinese, Russian or Brazilian companies bidding for public contracts in Europe may face restrictions if their governments do not open up their own state-run projects to European firms, the EU commission said Wednesday ( ...

Business between the EU and China is running as usual, despite highly-public trade differences between the two economic powerhouses, the Danish trade minister has said. "I wouldn't say that [EU-China trade relations] ...

In a sign of growing confidence on the global stage, China on Monday (12 March) singled out Europe as the "biggest uncertainty" for the future of its economy. The governor of China's central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, said ...

Two months ago, on 14 January, 22-year-old Buddhist monk Lobsang Jamyang was riding into the town of Ngaba in Tibet as a pillion passenger on a motorcycle. He asked the driver to turn off the main road to visit the Andu ...

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has told the Chinese public that the EU will become a fully-fledged "political union" after the financial crisis. Speaking to TV cameras after a meeting with Chinese leader ...

China has banned its airlines from taking part in Europe's Emissions Trading System (ETS), which forces all airlines flying in and out of Europe from 1 January this year to buy pollution permits. On Monday (6 February) ...

Clouds hang over the European wind industry. Growth has slowed down and revenues have been disappointing, as the global economy shows little sign of recovering. At the same time, competition has grown fierce, notably ...

The Dalai Lama has urged foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton to keep asking China for EU diplomats to visit Tibet. "The situation in Tibet is very desperate. It is urgent that the international community sends fact- ...

Tibet's new political leader, Lobsang Sangay, has said EU politicians should not bow to China in the belief it is becoming the next world superpower. Fresh from a high-profile trip to Washington, Sangay spoke to ...

A collapse of the eurozone would be a "disaster for everyone" and EU leaders have not "fully realised" the urgency of the situation, a Chinese official said Tuesday (29 November), adding that Europe's problem is not so ...

China is looking to buy EU factories and railways instead of wobbly government bonds as prices fall amid the eurozone crisis. Minister of commerce Chen Deming articulated the strategy at a business congress in China on ...

Chinese ratings agency Dagong on Tuesday (22 November) downgraded Greece's sovereign rating to the second-lowest 'default' level, a move suggesting that Beijing has no intention of 'playing Santa Claus' to the ailing ...

A three-day forum of political heavyweights from the EU and China ended on Wednesday with kind words at a half-hour press conference. The EU-China High-Level Group, the second of its kind after a first encounter in ...

Using language recalling German tabloid depictions of "lazy Greeks", the chairman of China's sovereign wealth fund has said the EU as a whole suffers from "sloth" and "indolence." Jin Liquin made the comments during a ...

China and India have indicated that the Greek referendum will make it harder for them to put their money into eurozone rescue schemes. Chinese President Hu Jintao told French leader Nicolas Sarkozy at the G20 summit in ...

French leader Nicolas Sarkozy has said people should feel relaxed about China taking part in future EU bail-outs. But his political opponents warn there will be a price to pay. Speaking in a 73-minute-long TV interview ...

With the eurozone short of money to prop up bad sovereign debt and with China keen to save its main export market from disaster, EU officials are exploring ways to involve the Asian giant in their anti-crisis fund, the ...