Keeping China at arm's length is in focus This WEEK

It comes after one of the most important elections this year took place on Sunday, as voters in Turkey cast their ballot in a presidential election.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main challenger to Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan, last week accused Moscow of interfering with the Turkish election.

Ahead of the G7 meeting, in a rare joint press conference European Council president Charles Michel and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen are set to speak with Brussels-based journalists on Monday (15 May).

The G7 aims to send a signal to China by announcing a joint effort to counter "economic coercion," with the EU hoping to avoid becoming a "vassal" in a US-China clash, as French president Emmanuel Macron said recently.

Last week, EU foreign ministers discussed a policy paper on Beijing which warned that "critical dependencies" on China "leave us vulnerable to weaponisation and coercion" in high-tech areas such as renewable-energy and communication technologies, vaccines, and raw materials.

Japan, the host of the G7 meeting this time, has been spearheading new efforts to diversify supply chains away from China, by building partnerships with low- and middle-income countries through investment and aid.

Back in Brussels, EU finance and economic ministers are set to meet on Monday and Tuesday (15 and 16 May).

They are expected to discuss the EU Commission's spring economic forecast. They are also likely to talk about the progress on the digital euro and the banking union.

Talks will continue among EU diplomats on the new Russia sanctions proposal, which aim at stopping Moscow circumventing sanctions by using neighbouring countries.

But there are worries that the sanctions efforts would push these countries closer to Moscow. The EU's proposals would impact states in Central Asia such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.