Brussels

Published on
17/09/2026 – 17:24 GMT+2

The European Commission stepped up pressure on China on Thursday, calling for tangible results with Beijing following a one-hour video call between Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao.

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The EU executive hopes to secure commitments from Beijing to rebalance the trade relationship, as the bloc’s trade deficit with China has been widening by €1 billion a day.

However, Beijing wants to secure access to the EU’s market of 450 million consumers, resisting calls from the Europeans to reduce its exports.

“While genuine engagement remains a priority, it is equally important that first concrete outcomes are delivered at the second session of the Trade and Investment Council in Beijing in October, which the Commissioner will co-chair – a signal that we are moving from rhetoric to results,” the Commission said in a statement after the call.

“That outcome needs to be credible,” the statement added.

The EU-China Trade and Investment Council was launched in June as a dialogue between the two sides, with the Commission setting October as a deadline to reach tangible results.

During the call on Thursday, Šefčovič and Wentao discussed market access on both sides and Chinese export controls on rare earths.

China has a near-monopoly over the production and processing of these strategic materials, which are essential to the EU’s green technology, defence and automotive industries, giving Beijing significant leverage in the negotiations.

The EU is seeking assurances that China will not halt its exports of rare earths again, a year after blocking them amid a trade war with the US. Securing the necessary export licences is essential for EU businesses.

EU leaders expect results

The coming weeks will be crucial for the negotiations, with EU officials expected to make another trip to China for technical discussions before Šefčovič himself travels to Beijing on 8–9 October.

In her State of the Union address to MEPs on Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also pushed for concrete results in the EU-China talks.

“Words are good. But deeds are better,” she said, making clear that the EU was ready to use all its trade defence instruments to rebalance the trade relationship.

China is also expected to feature prominently on the agenda when EU leaders meet in October. They have tasked the Commission with securing tangible results from its dialogue with Beijing.

In an interview with Euronews, Šefčovič also made clear that, without a “deliverable” to present to EU leaders,“the political interest would be to look for the solution through other instruments.”

The EU has several trade defence instruments such as anti-dumping duties or tariffs against unfair subsidies.

A diversification tool is also in the pipeline, aimed at reducing EU firms’ reliance on Chinese critical minerals for strategic technologies by helping them diversify their sources of supply.

Such a move would come as relations between Beijing and Brussels remain strained, following the Commission’s introduction of several legislative proposals aimed at protecting the EU market. One of them would introduce a European preference for products made in Europe, prompting China to threaten retaliatory measures.

Last summer, China also urged its companies to stop cooperating with the Commission in antitrust investigations, after the EU executive opened a probe in May into e-commerce giant JD.com over concerns about subsidies.

In an exclusive interview, European Union Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told Euronews that the EU is not in a position to mediate in the trade war between Canada and the United States following the collapse of their trade talks.

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Ten days ago, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from the negotiations with the Trump administration, blaming them for pressuring Canada over the use of the French language.

In the following days, US President Donald Trump announced 50% US tariffs on Canadian cars and trucks, to which Ottawa retaliated with tariffs on more than 700 US imports, worth about $20 billion (€17.2 billion).

“I don’t think that we are in a position to mediate,” Šefčovič said. “At the same time I know that they [Canada and the US] have such a close economic relationship that, despite the current tension, sooner or later there will be attempts to resolve it.”

The Commissioner added that “tariffs are taxes which are paid in the end by the economic operators or by the citizens”, a message he has reiterated several times over the last year during the EU’s own trade dispute with Washington.

“We clearly support free and fair trade with the lower or no tariffs at all,” he told Euronews.

Ready to cooperate

Since the trade talks stopped, Carney has called for a closer relationship between Ottawa and Brussels and announced he will attend European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union in Strasbourg in mid-September, one of the main events in Brussels’ political calendar.

An EU-Canada summit is also scheduled for later this autumn.

Šefčovič said the Commission is ready to explore “all possibilities” to increase cooperation with Canada, but he added that any new arrangements “would very much also depend on how comfortable the Canadian side would feel and what is its level of ambition”.

He pointed out that after Brussels clinched a trade deal with Ottawa in 2016, trade between the EU and Canada grew by 75% – but he also suggested that the deal could be pushed further.

“On both sides, we have certain elements which we can improve, still certain barriers, certain sensitivities for the products. I really think that we can explore much more that.”

Šefčovič said that a digital agreement might be signed with Canada before the end of the year, and he also cited coming cooperation in critical raw materials with potential joint investments.

Ottawa is seen by Brussels as a like-minded partner sharing its vision of the new global trade order, and Šefčovič hopes to have its backing to get closer to members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which has liberalised trade between 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas, including Canada – but not the US. The UK became the pact’s first and to date only European member in 2024, with Canada ratifying its full accession as of 1 September.

“Canadians are very important partners for forging a new level of cooperation with the CTPPP,” Šefčovič said, “which represents together 40 percent of global trade.”