The European Union and China have agreed to enter three months of formal trade consultations aimed at averting a trade war over the bloc’s annual €360 billion import-export imbalance, in their first joint statement on the relationship in seven years.
EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič met Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Brussels on Monday, with both sides agreeing to open the consultations after weeks of threats and recriminations from Beijing over the prospect of EU measures to curb the flow of Chinese goods and components into Europe. “The EU and China as key trade partners, agree that the main objective of the TIC is to strengthen dialogue at ministerial level on trade and investment policies with the view to stabilise and make our bilateral relationship more balanced,” the two sides said in a joint statement, with the next meeting scheduled for October in Beijing.
The talks come amid growing alarm in Brussels over what is now widely described as China Shock 2.0 — a threat to European industry and jobs extending well beyond electric vehicles and green technology. Eurostat reported on 15 June that Chinese exports to the EU now exceed imports from the bloc by approximately €1 billion per day. “We simply cannot afford to continue in the unsustainable growth of the trade deficit from the European perspective,” Šefčovič said. “We just didn’t want to wait too long. What is very important for us is engagement, it’s dialogue. But it has to bring tangible results, and we believe that we can achieve them by October.”
Industry groups including the European Chambers of Commerce in China have warned that the scale of exports flowing into Europe risks “cannibalising” EU factories that remain heavily dependent on Chinese components.
The consultations will cover four areas: rebalancing of trade and investment, export controls including those on rare earths, intellectual property rights, and World Trade Organization reforms. The two sides have also agreed to a joint monitoring mechanism extending beyond headline Eurostat and Chinese customs (GACC) figures, designed to identify sudden surges in exports or imports and trigger political discussions should either side move into an “amber or red” danger zone, according to Šefčovič.
The European Commission has reportedly been mapping import and export data in fine detail over the past year, suggesting the three-month window will focus primarily on political dialogue rather than technical groundwork. The EU has adopted a cautious approach following the failure of its 2024 tariffs to meaningfully curb EV imports, with sources indicating quotas on hybrids and chemicals could be considered in the autumn.
