CHINA: The European Union starts talks with China on a sweeping new treaty

The European Union's top foreign policy official Benita Ferrero-Waldner on Thursday (January 18) said China was a key player in cutting greenhouse gas output and limiting global warming. Ferrero-Waldner is in China to launch talks on a sweeping new agreement between the EU and China. She said the new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement aims to reflect the expansive cooperation between Brussels and Beijing. "Twenty years ago the EU and China were particularly trading partners. But now we are strategic partners with a huge range of different cooperation activities. And therefore we need an agreement in order to reflect this reality," she told reporters at a press conference. The proposed pact covering 22 areas would address human rights, where Western capitals and rights groups have pressed China to drastically improve treatment of criminal suspects, prisoners and political critics. But talks with Chinese officials in Beijing this week focused particularly on climate change. The EU hopes China will do more to contain its ballooning output of greenhouse gases. "We want to work with China on these issues. Neither energy security nor climate change can effectively be addressed without China, because China is currently bringing onstream one coal-fired power plant really every week. And the rise in greenhouse gases could easily offset any reductions that would be made by the European Union. And I must say that today China is aware of the problem and is just preparing an adaptation plan," said Ferrero-Waldner. The EU has proposed cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. Ferrero-Waldner also addressed an EU arms embargo China wants lifted. She said Beijing first needed to create the right environment, including ratifying a civil and political rights covenant and other measures. "We would also like to see the release of the prisoners from the Tiananmen Square and also the abolishment of the re-education through labour. Those are very important steps and of course we would hope to see some progress on these matters. That could help," said Ferrero-Waldner. Brussels banned many arms sales to China in 1989 after Beijing's bloody military crackdown on pro-reform demonstrators. Trade, environment, and human rights are three issues that have created tension in EU-China relations. The EU has invoked anti-dumping rules against many Chinese products, most recently leather shoes. And China's booming economy could foil the EU's environmental protection measures. With coal-fired stations generating over 80 percent of its electricity, China is on course to overtake the United States by 2009 as the biggest creator of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas generated by human activity. But Ferrero-Waldner said she was not ready to push Beijing to accept the mandatory caps on emissions that Europe abides by under the Kyoto Protocol.

ITN Source | January 18, 2007

Tags:. .push. .matters. .treatment. .western. .plant