The EU needs to engage with China despite Russian ties, Charles Michel tells Euronews in exclusive interview

 The EU needs to engage with China despite Russian ties, Charles Michel tells Euronews in exclusive interview

By Euronews Brussels bureau

Should the European Union engage with China despite Washington’s repeated warnings and Beijing’s ever-closer ties with Moscow?

For Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, the answer is clearly “yes.”

“We are absolutely convinced that it is important that China doesn't support Russia with military equipment and it's important that China supports international law, the stability through the UN Charter,” Michel told Euronews in an exclusive interview ahead of a two-day summit in Brussels.

“I had this in-depth debate with President Xi (Jinping). I'm not naïve, I know there are close ties between China and Russia. But on the other hand, I think that in those circumstances, it is very clear that we need to engage with China, not because we agree on everything with China, on the contrary, but because we need to defend our interests and to defend our principles.”

Defining the exact depth of EU-China relations has been a hot topic of conversation for the past few years. Some in Europe advocate for strong links built upon mutually beneficial commercial interests, while others prefer to keep an arm’s length due to China’s authoritarianism and rampant violations of human rights.

Washington is prodding Brussels into taking a hard-line stance, but the need to achieve consensus among 27 member states has so far hindered a clear-cut, unified policy.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has further complicated the debate, as reflected by the critical reaction to Beijing’s proposed plan to bring the conflict to an end. The 12-point document urges the lifting of “unilateral sanctions” and the abandonment of “Cold War mentality,” language badly received by Western allies. Even more notably, the plan doesn’t speak about any occupied territory.

“This peace plan is not what we believe in,” Michel told our reporter Efi Koutsokosta

“We believe in the peace formula proposed by President Zelenskyy, which is based on the UN charter, the international law and the multilateral approach.”

In his interview with Euronews, the European Council President insisted it was paramount the EU continues its support for Ukraine and described as “extremely important” the latest tranche of military aid, worth €2 billion.

“This is a concrete decision for real European defence. And you know that in the past, we discussed a lot this question, for some it was a theoretical debate. Now, this is the reality,” Michel said. “It was impossible to imagine such a decision even a few weeks before the start of the full-scale invasion.”

Asked to draw the line between military support and active belligerence, Michel said the EU was legally entitled to help a nation under attack.

“There is no doubt that there is no intention to attack Russia. There is an aggressor: this is Russia. There are victims,” Michel said.

“We are supporting international law because we know that if we do not support Ukraine, it means that the world will be less safe in the future.”

Further down the interview, the European Council President discussed the latest developments in the financial markets, which have been rocked by the spectacular collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the biggest American bank to fall since 2008, and the government-brokered takeover of Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest lender.

“We are monitoring what's happening in Switzerland, in the United States,” Michel said. “But I am confident that we have the right tools in order to make sure that we keep a stable situation.”

In the president’s view, the financial turmoil should serve as an “additional argument, not a trigger” to advance talks on the long-stalled European banking union, which remains incomplete due to persistent divergences between member states.

The union's third pillar, known as the European deposit insurance scheme (EDIS), is the last piece of the puzzle. EDIS is supposed to prevent desperate bank runs as the one that brought down Silicon Valley Bank.

“We have been working a lot on the question, but maybe it is time to speed up,” Michel said. “And I hope it will be possible to give a political impetus.”

▶️ Watch now Europe’s Decision, the full interview with Charles Michel.