By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-23 05:01:21 | Updated at 2025-01-23 09:29:32
4 hours ago
The European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas plans to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Munich next month, in what is likely to be the first formal sit-down between the two sides since a changing of the guard in Brussels.
A meeting at the annual Munich Security Conference between February 14 and 16 will mark Kallas’s first face-to-face encounter with China’s leadership since she became the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy in December, according to people familiar with the plan.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen briefly met Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in what her spokeswoman confirmed was “just a handshake … when they crossed coming out and into the speaker’s room”.
But there has been no substantive interaction with Beijing since von der Leyen’s new commission was established late last year. European Council President Antonio Costa’s call with Chinese President Xi Jinping this month remains the sole calendar engagement this year, although he leads a separate institution.
Kallas’s predecessor, Josep Borrell, met Wang several times at the Munich conference, one of the premier events on the diplomatic calendar, providing ministers with a forum to meet sometimes dozens of their counterparts in a flurry of activity.
Working-level talks about an EU-China summit this year are continuing, although no date has been set. It remains to be seen whether the Europeans can convince Xi to come to Brussels.
