ROME – The EU has moved from reducing dependencies on China to negotiating the terms on which the relationship continues, with October as the first test of whether Beijing will accept them.
Driving the news: That shift was at the centre of “Securing Europe-China Policy: Emerging Trends,” a roundtable held on September 29 at John Cabot University’s Guarini Institute for Public Affairs and chaired by its associate director, Enrico Fardella, gathering in Rome diplomats, scholars, think tankers from several European countries.
- The discussion was organised around three questions: whether Europe is actually changing, which dependencies genuinely need securing and which channels should remain open.
Why it matters: Reducing excessive dependencies commands broad support, and the contention has moved to execution. Brussels increasingly expects measurable changes in trade flows, market access and the reliability of critical-material supplies, while Beijing reads European measures as protectionism and locates Europe’s competitiveness problem at home.
By the numbers: In 2025 EU goods exports to China fell 6.5% to €199.6 billion and imports rose 6.4% to €559.4 billion, leaving a deficit of €359.8 billion.
- China is the EU’s largest source of imports and only its fourth-largest export market.
- In September, Ursula von der Leyen put the deficit at roughly €1 billion a day, described a “second China shock” as already under way and said the EU would use all available tools if dialogue failed.
- She also cited dependence of more than 80% on China for many critical raw materials and around 90% for some rare earths.
The big picture: Brussels increasingly treats the imbalance as an industrial problem, in which weak Chinese domestic demand, large-scale industrial policy and more sophisticated exports displace European production at home and in third markets.
- The toolkit has widened accordingly: the Industrial Accelerator Act in March, the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, the International Procurement Instrument, critical-raw-materials policy, investment screening and, in September, a Public Procurement Act with European-preference criteria.
- The two most recent proposals are horizontal rather than China-specific, and together these instruments place competitiveness and security within a single strategic frame. The security agenda has hardened alongside them, as China’s ties with Russia, information manipulation and economic coercion enter the same debate.
The process: Since June the two sides have negotiated the overall balance of the relationship. The China–EU Trade and Investment Consultations, launched in Brussels on June 29, cover trade and investment balancing, export controls, intellectual property and WTO reform, replacing the treatment of electric vehicles, procurement, rare earths and subsidies as separate files. Dialogue is meant to be given time to deliver, and failure would strengthen the case for autonomous measures. Trade defence is already in use, with definitive anti-dumping duties of 4.3–45.3% imposed on Chinese tyres in July.
- In early September, Maroš Šefčovič, European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, set an October deadline for concrete results, failing which the EU would consider harsher measures and fuller use of trade-defence tools.
- He is expected in Beijing on October 8–9. Brussels was also reported to be pressing for voluntary restraints on hybrid-car exports (around a 15% EU market share), action in other sectors and higher Chinese purchases of European goods.
Beijing’s position: China accepts intensive consultation but rejects the premise that European market restrictions are a legitimate response to the imbalance, pointing to WTO rules and European competitiveness.
- It seeks “upward balancing” through more European exports to China. “Balance” therefore has no agreed meaning: it could imply fewer Chinese exports, more European ones, greater Chinese localisation in Europe, wider European access in China, or a combination.
Zoom in: The harder question is which dependencies are strategic vulnerabilities and which reflect ordinary interdependence or competitive pressure that Europe risks over-securitising.
- Critical materials are the clearest case, since dependence on Chinese processing and export licensing has exposed the limits of European autonomy.
- Stockpiling, diversification and investment in alternative processing are accelerating, but they are medium-term rather than immediate substitutes.
What we’re watching: Member states remain divided, though the centre has moved. France favours a more defensive line, Germany is harder than a year ago (its deficit with China reached €89.3 billion in 2025, and its exports kept falling in the first half of 2026), and Italy and Spain are more supportive of action against sectors exposed to Chinese overcapacity.
- The European Council on October 15–16 and the informal meeting of trade ministers on October 22–23 will show whether that convergence survives once restrictive measures carry national costs.
The external context matters as well. Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States on September 23–25 may alter the picture on tariffs, rare earths and technology, and a US–China accommodation that preserved Chinese industrial access elsewhere would intensify European concern about becoming the default destination for excess supply.
The bottom line: The near-term choice lies between a negotiated form of managed interdependence and a more autonomous European effort to restrict, condition and redirect selected Chinese trade and investment.
- The outcome depends on whether Beijing delivers visible rebalancing, whether member states stay united once measures reach their own firms, and whether Europe can reduce critical dependencies fast enough to make its tougher line credible.
