BRUSSELS (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel, top European Union officials, and Chinese President Xi Jinping are holding talks Monday focused on trade, giving impetus to slow-moving talks on an investment agreement and building trust to tackle thorny political issues that are harming their ties.

Merkel, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, will be joined by Council President Charles Michel, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, for the videoconference, due to start at 1200 GMT.

The talks between two of the three largest economies and traders in the world will allow them to take stock of their ties, with the Europeans wanting to focus on economic issues, reform of the World Trade Organization, climate change, and the coronavirus pandemic.

The EU sees China as a “systemic rival” offering great opportunities but also presenting many challenges, and the pandemic has created new obstacles, notably what Brussels sees as a China-orchestrated campaign of disinformation about the disease that could put lives at risk.

China has been accused of trying to influence European officials, and Borrell has twice denied this year that the External Action Service — a kind of EU foreign office that he leads — has bowed to Beijing’s pressure to alter documents.

While the 27-nation EU — China’s biggest trading partner — is often divided in its approach to Beijing, the security law recently imposed on Hong Kong has galvanized the bloc, and member countries insist it is undermining the territory’s autonomy guaranteed in the “one country, two systems” framework.

The Europeans are expected to underline their concerns about Hong Kong and tensions in the South China Sea during Monday’s talks, and renew their call for having a human rights dialogue with Chinese officials later this year.

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TAIPEI (TCA) — Member countries of the European Union (EU) are set to hold their first forum in Taipei to pitch investment opportunities directly to Taiwanese companies, according to the top EU envoy to Taiwan, Focus Taiwan reported.

It is in the interest of Taiwanese businesses to increase their presence in Europe, especially at a time when global supply chains are being restructured due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Filip Grzegorzewski, the head of the European Economic and Trade Office (EETO) in Taiwan, said in an exclusive interview with CNA (Focus Taiwan) on September 11.

Taiwan has the potential to become one of the EU’s top partners, especially in the ICT, automobile, mobility, health and biotech sectors, which Taiwan champions, Grzegorzewski said.

In view of this, EETO will host the first ever EU Investment Forum (EIF) on September 22 at the Taipei International Convention Center, with 15 EU member states participating, he said.

Participants will include all EU members that have a presence in Taiwan, he said, including Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy and Slovakia.

The forum will use video links to connect investment agencies from those countries to potential investors in Taiwan, enabling them to interact on various topics, including business incentives, Grzegorzewski said, describing the forum as an important milestone to Taiwan-EU relations.

According to EETO data, the EU was the biggest investor in Taiwan in 2019, accounting for about 25 percent of Taiwan’s foreign direct investment. However, only 1.7 percent of Taiwanese investments abroad goes to the EU.

Considering Taiwan’s economic strength, it has the potential to be a global presence and the European market presents untapped potential for it, Grzegorzewski said.

“We have 41 trade agreements across the globe that cover 72 countries. So, once you put an investment in Europe, you get access to not only the whole market of the EU, you can reach out to the rest of the world easily,” he said.

Although it is easier for Taiwanese investors to go to Southeast Asia or China due to their geographical proximity, Grzegorzewski said investing in Europe is not particularly difficult and brings with it a lot of benefits.

“By getting closer to consumers, by getting access to a highly educated workforce, and by getting access to a market with the same standards, you cut costs,” he said, adding that Taiwan does not have to rely on cheap labor in neighboring countries because Taiwan’s industries are no longer labor-intensive.

Around 300 refugees and migrants had by Sunday evening moved into a new camp facility being built by the Greek army in a former military shooting range in Kara Tepe, on the island of Lesbos.

Soldiers have set up between 300 and 350 tents and continued working into the night.

But many of the refugees and migrants are reluctant to move into a new camp that will be manned by police. They fear it will be a prison.

Meanwhile, almost 10,000 prepared to sleep rough another night in the stretch of the road between Kara Tepe and the outskirts of Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos.

Greece’s prime minister demanded on Sunday that the European Union take a greater responsibility for managing migration into the bloc, as Greek authorities promised that 12,000 migrants and asylum-seekers left homeless after fire gutted an overcrowded camp would be moved shortly to a new tent city.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis blamed some residents at the Moria camp on Lesbos for trying to blackmail his government by deliberately setting the fires that destroyed the camp last week. But he said this could be an opportunity to improve how the EU handles a key challenge.

“It (the burning of Moria) was a tragedy. These images were bad. It was a warning bell to all to become sensitized. Europe cannot afford a second failure on the migration issue,” Mitsotakis said Sunday at a press conference in the northern city of Thessaloniki.

Human rights activists have long deplored the squalor at the Moria refugee camp, which was built to house 2,750 but was filled with some 12,500 people who fled across the sea from Turkey.

Since the fires, which came after the camp faced a coronavirus lockdown, thousands of people have camped out in the open on highway near Moria under police guard. Many have protested the Greek government for refusing to allow the homeless migrants to leave Lesbos for the Greek mainland. Greek residents are also unhappy that their island is being used as a dumping ground for migrants.

Mitsotakis said he has been in touch with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the reallocation of at least some migrants from Moria, but he said there will be a new, permanent refugee camp on Lesbos.

The Greek army has been setting up tents at a former artillery range, about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the old camp.

Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis said an estimated 1,000 Moria residents would be relocated to the army-built tent city late Sunday and that getting everyone housed at the new site would take several days.

“At the moment, it’s happening on a voluntary basis,” Mitarakis told Greek TV station Open TV.

Mitarakis said those entering the new camp would undergo rapid testing for coronavirus and that five new cases have been found so far.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis expressed solidarity Sunday with the migrants on Lesbos and called for “dignified” welcome for them. Francis had visited the Moria camp in 2016, bringing back to Rome with him 12 Syrian refugees.

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LONDON: The European Union on Sunday rejected an incendiary claim by Prime Minister Boris Johnson that the bloc is plotting to destabilise the UK as another week of Brexit high drama beckoned, headlined by a stormy parliamentary debate in London.

The war of words escalated over a new British government bill that London admits is in violation of its EU divorce treaty — legislation that has sparked a furious response from former prime ministers Tony Blair and John Major, as well as sitting MPs.

Johnson’s claim that the 27-nation EU is plotting to choke off food supplies via crippling new trade barriers between Britain and Northern Ireland is “spin and not the truth”, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told BBC television.

“There is no blockade proposed,” he added, calling it “inflammatory language coming from Number 10 (Downing Street)”.

Former British PMs say government’s actions are ‘embarrassing our nation’

Charles Michel, who heads the EU Council of government chiefs, said Britain’s “international credibility” is at stake as both sides battle to unwind nearly 50 years of economic integration, following a deeply divisive referendum in the UK.

EU trade negotiator Michel Barnier insisted that a Northern Irish protocol in the EU treaty “is not a threat to the integrity of the UK”, as claimed by Johnson in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Major and Blair, who led Britain through Northern Ireland’s historic peace talks in the 1990s, wrote in the Sunday Times that the government’s actions were “shaming itself and embarrassing our nation”.

Backed by the EU, Ireland stresses the provisions for Northern Ireland were agreed by both sides to ensure fair competition after Brexit, and to comply with a 1998 peace pact that ended three decades of unrest in the province. Johnson had accused the EU of threatening to tear the UK apart by imposing a food “blockade” between Britain and Northern Ireland, which is meant to enjoy a special status with the EU after Brexit.

Johnson said the EU’s stance justified his government’s introduction of the new legislation to regulate the UK’s internal market and maintain access to Northern Ireland, after a post-Brexit transition period expires at the end of this year.

The food dispute centres on the EU’s reluctance to grant Britain “third country” status, which acknowledges that nations meet basic requirements to export their foodstuffs to Europe. The EU is worried that post-Brexit Britain could undercut its own food standards, as well as rules on state aid for companies, and infiltrate its single market via Northern Ireland.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2020

by Xinhua writer Wang Lei

Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a virtual meeting with German and European Union (EU) leaders on Monday, a timely and critical gathering to steer the China-EU partnership toward a more stable and mature future in a world where uncertainties abound.

It is the second China-EU leaders’ meeting in three months, and the latest episode of frequent high-level exchanges between the two sides, demonstrating an earnest hope from Beijing and Brussels to boost all-round cooperation, and build a more open and prosperous world.

Cooperation between China and the EU, following the establishment of their diplomatic ties 45 years ago, continues to gain momentum with bilateral trade and mutual investment thriving and people-to-people exchanges flourishing. The two sides have also been working closely on global matters.

Humanity is struggling to cope with an unprecedented public health crisis rarely seen in a century, while the global economy is absorbing the impact of perhaps the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Unfortunately, in an age where cooperation and solidarity are much-needed, the specter of isolationism and protectionism is rearing its ugly head.

At this drastic moment, China and the EU, which account for about a quarter of the world’s population and one third of gross global product, need to step up efforts to advance cooperation and strengthen coordination to better handle challenges in a post-pandemic era.

The most urgent task for China and the EU is to build an anti-pandemic partnership to beat the deadly virus and to steer the world economy toward recovery as soon as possible.

As governments around the world are seeking to reopen their countries, the two sides need to focus on how to step up their collective and coordinated response to facilitate cross-border movements of people and goods while doing their best to reduce the risk of new trans-border cases to a minimum. A multinational information-sharing network for both people and commercial goods is among the must-dos.

China and the EU should also give full play to their respective advantages and work even closer to fast-track the development, production and distribution of effective treatments and vaccines, and make sure those live-saving tools are accessible and affordable.

In the field of the economy and trade, the cornerstone of China-EU relations, Beijing and Brussels share a promising future. In 2019, the two-way trade reached roughly 710 billion U.S. dollars, growing at 8 percent year on year. Germany, the EU’s rotating presidency in the second half of 2020, has long been China’s largest trading partner in Europe.

Despite the pandemic, economic and trade cooperation between the two sides remain robust in 2020. In the first eight months, a total of 7,601 China-Europe freight train trips were made, up by 44 percent over the same period in 2019.

Looking into the future, it is also important for the two sides to make the pie of their shared interests bigger. Thus China and the EU must join their efforts in the investment treaty negotiations and search for solutions to remaining issues so as to ensure a timely conclusion of a comprehensive deal. On this basis, a joint feasibility study for a China-EU free trade agreement could be put on the table.

Furthermore, the two sides should work together to crack open new areas for cooperation, as Xi proposed at the 22nd China-EU leaders’ meeting in June, to forge a green and digital partnership between China and the EU by fostering cooperation in clean energy, sustainable finance, e-commerce and cloud computing.

The latest bit of good news for EU investors came at the China International Fair for Trade in Services earlier this month, when Beijing announced more practical steps to further open its market, including developing a negative-list system to better manage cross-border services trade, further easing market access for the services sector, and expanding imports of quality services.

In the international arena, China and the EU are playing a major role in maintaining world peace and stability, and improving global governance, including jointly fending off unilateralism and protectionism, supporting the guiding roles of the United Nations and the World Health Organization, and tackling the world’s most pressing issues such as the raging pandemic, terrorism and climate change.

To do that, communication and coordination is indispensable. China and the EU need to build a bridge of mutual understanding to overcome their social and political differences and reject xenophobia.

The 45-year-old China-EU relationship shows that the two sides share far more in common than their differences would suggest. It is believed that China and the EU can further their own interests by respecting one another’s legitimate and core concerns.

As the pandemic continues to rage and the global economic crisis remains far from over, the world is crying for more contributions by China and the EU. Together, they should fight tooth and nail for the common future of all. Enditem

Former UK Parliamentary speaker John Bercow has made more than £500,000 in fees for public speeches and pundit appearances.

Bercow’s company Fedhead Ltd made £547,664 in its first year, although it owes £157,647 in tax and social security payments, the Daily Mail reported

The controversial former speaker, known for his booming voice and allegations of bullying his staff – which he denies – owns 76 per cent of the firm with the rest in the hands of his wife Sally. 

Bercow reportedly earned over £60,000 for his one-night-stand as an election pundit for Sky News in December 2019.

He has also joined elite agency JLA Speaker Bureau, whose clients including former Labour Party spokesman Alastair Campbell and ex-government minister Ed Balls earn up to £25,000 per speech.

“After stepping down from Westminster John shares his insights on the future of our politics and the lessons learned about driving change,” reads Bercow’s blurb on the Fedhead website. “He is also a seasoned raconteur with countless stories from the corridors of power and an eye out for anyone ‘chuntering from a sedentary position’.”

In 2019 Bercow disregarded the century-old Erskine May rules of Parliamentary procedure to allow a series of indicative votes with multiple options. They were part of unsuccessful moves by opposition parties and Tory rebels to prevent Britain leaving the European Union (EU) in line with the 2016 referendum vote.

He stepped down as speaker in October 2019 as the Westminster wrangling to break the deadlock reached its endgame, with Tory Brexiteers openly accusing him of undermining the impartiality of the ‘Woolsack’ or speaker’s chair.

The following month he told a Foreign Press Association event in London: “I think that Brexit is the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period,” after declaring “I don’t have to remain impartial now.”

Bercow was notably denied the seat in the House of Lords normally awarded to retired speakers by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, despite Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn nominating the former Conservative MP.

EU leaders will talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping seeking trade and investment Monday, despite tensions over Hong Kong’s freedoms and Beijing’s treatment of its Uighur minority.

Chinese officials, EU chiefs Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold a video-conference to replace a full summit with all 27 EU leaders cancelled because of coronavirus.

China says an investment deal — already seven years in the making — can be agreed this year, but EU officials warn obstacles remain and insist they will not swallow unfavourable terms simply to cut a deal.

“Even if there is a political objective to accelerate negotiations and conclude them by the end of the year, we will have this only if it is something worth having,” an EU official said.

Brussels says “significant progress” has been made in talks since a similar video summit in June, and officials hope to agree a roadmap to a deal by the end of the year — they also want Beijing to improve market access for European companies.

“The EU must define its own interests, and must be strong and independent of both China and the United States,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told the German weekly Welt am Sonntag.

Brussels wants to reinforce respect for intellectual property, to end obligations to transfer technology and to reduce subsidies for Chinese public enterprises.

• China-US tensions –

No major breakthrough is expected on Monday but the EU side hopes to persuade Xi to give fresh political impetus to the talks — and to allow his negotiators more room to compromise.

The meeting comes as ties between China and the US deteriorate, with both sides locked in fierce recriminations over trade disputes, human rights and the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Washington and Beijing have imposed curbs on each other’s diplomats, after another tit-for-tat move in July when the two governments ordered the closure of consulates in Houston and Chengdu.

Both sides have sought to enlist the EU in their spat and, during a visit to Brussels by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in June, EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell mooted talks to forge a common transatlantic front against China.

But little progress has been made on this initiative and broadly Brussels has preferred a middle path, treating Beijing as both a potential partner and a “systemic rival”.

“The EU stands firm on its interests and values but also wants to cooperate with China,” a senior EU official said.

• Hong Kong –

The EU will press Xi on Hong Kong, where Beijing has imposed a controversial new security law — a move denounced by the West as an assault on the city’s freedoms.

After the June summit, von der Leyen warned China would face “very negative consequences” if it pressed ahead with the law and the EU would limit exports to Hong Kong of equipment that could be used for surveillance and repression.

European concerns about Beijing’s rights record are growing. During a visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Berlin earlier this month, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called China out over Hong Kong and its treatment of minority Uighurs.

But the European Union is far from united on how to deal with China, with some member states urging a tougher stance on rights and the environment, and others wanting to boost trade.

But China as its own concerns.

China announced Saturday it was banning imports of pork products from Germany after the European country confirmed its first case of African swine fever.

Germany is Europe‘s biggest pork producer and recently saw a surge in demand from China after it suffered an outbreak of the same disease.

Meanwhile, Beijing has used its mammoth “Belt and Road” infrastructure scheme to effectively pick off investment-hungry EU member states such as Greece, Portugal and Italy.