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You are here : Home > News > Speeches > May 2005 > Speech of Jean Asselborn, Foreign Minister of Luxembourg and current President of the EU Council on the 30th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between the EU and China
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Speech of Jean Asselborn, Foreign Minister of Luxembourg and current President of the EU Council on the 30th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between the EU and China

Date of Speech : 12-05-2005

Place : Beijing

Speaker : Jean Asselborn

Policy area : General Affairs and External Relations

Event : EU-China (Troika)


State Counsellor Tang Jiaxuan,

Minister Li Zhaoxing, Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to be here today as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the EU.

This celebration offers us the opportunity to look back with great satisfaction to the development and diversification of our relations during 30 years, and specifically to the last few years where Sino European relations have evolved into a strategic partnership with a wide ranged and multilevel cooperation.

With a bilateral trade that reached 177 billion USD in 2004, enlarged EU has become China’s top trade partner, while China is now the EU’s second largest partner.

The EU-China ADS agreement gives the opportunity to Chinese tourists to visit Europe, and hence will promote better understanding of each other’s culture by our populations.

The quality of our cooperation in science and technology is underlined by the Chinese participation in Galileo, the European worldwide system for radio navigation and positioning, and our common future cooperation in the ITER nuclear fusion project.

On the political side, our common attachment to multilateralism and rule of law as the basic principles of the functioning of the International Community, notably results in converging positions on many international and regional issues, but also allows us to conduct political dialogues on such important and sensitive issues as human rights in a spirit of mutual respect and understanding.

Engaging China and accommodating its legitimate political and cultural aspirations within a framework of international rules, while also encouraging China to accept new international responsibilities and helping to make UN and WTO work better, will continue to be the EU’s objectives in our further cooperation with China.

To achieve this objective, EU and China need not only to promote dialogue, but also to establish a more legally formal relationship. We hope that at the next EU-China summit in Beijing, we can officially launch negotiations for a Comprehensive EU-China framework agreement which will be the cornerstone of our future cooperation.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to propose a toast to the bright future of the EU-China relations and the deepening of our strategic partnership.

Thank you.


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