The European Commission on Tuesday sought to play down divisions with France and the US following a joint visit to China last week in which Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen appeared to deliver very mixed messages.
Despite efforts to coordinate in advance, the French President undermined afterwards the Commission’s plans to present a united front by calling for Europe to avoid acting as “America’s followers” in its escalating confrontation with Beijing over the self-governing island of Taiwan, which China regards as a breakaway province.
This happened in an interview with Politico and French journalists on his plane back to France after the visit to China. According to the edited interview, Macron said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.”
The Commission’s chief spokesperson, Eric Mamer, faced a deluge of critical questions at a media briefing in Brussels over the handling of the visit, described as “embarrassing” and a “foreign policy disaster” by leading US and German politicians.
The diplomatic own-goal risks signalling that Europe will not stand as one against Chinese aggression and may embolden US critics who have accused Europe of providing insufficient military support following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Signals crossed
Responding to backlash about the lack of coordination, Mamer insisted that the head of the Commission and French President presented “coherent and consistent” messages during their trilateral meeting with Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping.
The spokesperson dismissed concerns over the “optics” of the visit, especially in relation to the way in which the two leaders were received. While Macron was on an extensive state visit, von der Leyen was in China for “high-level working meetings”. Mamer added that the Commission “was expecting differences in protocol,” and complimented their Chinese homologues, calling them “perfect hosts” who had already invited the Commission chief for a return visit.
He explained that it was natural that different people representing different EU institutions and EU Member States express themselves in line with their competencies but declined to reply to questions whether Macron’s statements in the interview deviated from the joint message that he and von der Leyen had given at their trilateral meeting with the Chinese leader.
However, he admitted that it would have been surprising if China would have agreed with the position expressed by the EU leaders at the meeting. The outcome of the meeting from the point of view of the European Commission was that it took place and had allowed von der Leyen to explain the Commission’s assessment of EU’s relations with China.
Within hours of von der Leyen and Macron’s departures, China launched a major military exercise off Taiwan with simulated strikes at key targets.
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Macron appears to have more reason to be satisfied with the outcome of the meeting as he was accompanied by French business leaders who signed business contracts during his three-day state visit China.
Ahead of the visit, von der Leyen gave a hard-hitting speech in Brussels, setting out the Commission’s new policy in response to “a very deliberate hardening of China's overall strategic posture”. The Commission chief took President Xi to task for maintaining his ‘no-limits friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and underscored the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
She also distanced herself from US policy on China, favouring an approach based on "de-risking" rather than “decoupling”, which she warned could threaten economic, societal, political or scientific ties.
By Dennis Abbott
