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Indian PM praises Merkel's 'vision', urges climate action
By Frank ZELLER
Berlin (AFP) May 30, 2017


EU, China seek tighter bond to face Trump
Brussels (AFP) May 30, 2017 - The EU and China will attempt to deepen ties at a summit Thursday amid rising worry about the direction taken by US President Donald Trump on trade and climate change.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will meet EU president Donald Tusk and European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker with hopes of forging an answer to Trump's "America First" challenge.

But years of skirmishes over trade and human rights will make a deeper alliance difficult.

The incentive to strengthen links with Beijing is strong after German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU's most powerful leader, on Sunday warned that the EU can no longer depend on longtime ally US as a reliable partner.

Li, China's second most powerful leader after President Xi Jinping, will also visit Germany where he will meet Merkel and sign a cooperation deal on electric cars.

"There's a lot we can offer each other," said vice foreign minister Wang Chao in the run-up to the European tour by Li.

The Brussels talks follow a tense international tour by Trump in which the unpredictable tycoon refused pleas by his European counterparts to adhere to the 2015 Paris climate accord.

The EU, US and China each roughly represent the same weight in the world economy and an exit by Washington from the climate deal would leave its only chance of survival in the hands of Brussels and Beijing.

Given the context, China's premier and the heads of the European Union's main institutions are expected to deliver a strong statement in support of the Paris agreement.

But besides climate, big obstacles to a deeper diplomatic breakthrough remain.

- 'Walk the talk' -

Also on the agenda is an EU-China investment accord that has been under negotiation since 2013 and that is largely seen as a dry run for a full trade deal.

But those talks are at a standstill over longstanding disagreements on the lack of access given to European companies in China and a fight over cheap Chinese exports that Europeans say are unfairly flooding their market.

China, the EU's second-largest trade partner, "needs to walk the talk," said EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem at a business conference last week.

"The welcome commitments from China about liberalisation have not been matched by concrete action," she added.

Many had hoped that President Xi Jinping's fervent defence of globalisation at the World Economic Forum in January would signal a new open trade era for China.

"We have heard a lot of positive signals coming out of China when it comes to market opening and freer trade, but we hope this week we will lead to some concrete result," the European Chamber of Commerce's Mats Harborn told Bloomberg TV.

But Li Chenggang, assistant minister of commerce, told a news briefing in Beijing that "the two sides don't see eye to eye on all issues".

China's militarisation of islands in the South China Sea and the increase in authoritarianism under Xi have also rung alarm bells for Europeans.

"EU leaders need to make good on their pledges and make human rights and the freeing of peaceful activists a top strategic priority in the EU's relationship with China," said Human Rights Watch's EU director Lotte Leicht.

In a letter to Juncker and Tusk, several groups of rights activists, including Human Rights Watch, urged the EU to take up these concerns with China's leadership.

"While EU officials are willing to engage in very public, critical battles with China over steel tariffs, solar panels, or the South China Sea, most EU officials are not willing to engage publicly in such debates over China's use of torture and arbitrary detention," the letter said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday that failing to act on climate change would be "morally criminal" and voiced strong support for the "vision" of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

His comments came as Merkel is emerging as the world leader most openly at odds with US President Donald Trump, saying days ago that Europe could no longer completely rely on traditional ally the United States and needed to find its own way.

Modi, on a Berlin visit kicking off a four-nation Europe tour, pledged India's commitment to democracy and a strong European Union, and argued that failing to act against global warming would be "a morally criminal act".

"We do not have the right to despoil the environment for future generations," he said in Hindi, at a joint press conference with Merkel.

Many of Modi's comments contrasted sharply with positions of Trump, who has denied climate change, criticised the EU, predicted more countries will leave the EU and spoken out against free trade while pushing an "America First" policy.

"We are all connected with one another," Modi said. "Democracy and diversity are the pillars of a values-based global order."

He added that "the international community really needs the chancellor's vision ... in terms of the great challenges," also including terrorism.

Merkel, who will host a G20 summit of the biggest developed and emerging economies in July, has long cultivated strategic relations with India, the world's biggest democracy and the rival Asian power to China, whose Prime Minister Li Keqiang will also visit Berlin this week.

Last Sunday -- after a G7 summit in which Trump and the other six western powers again sparred on climate, defence funding and other key issues -- Merkel said Europe could no longer completely rely on traditional allies the United States and Britain in the age of Trump and Brexit.

Standing beside Modi, Merkel said "India with its 1.25 billion people is a partner ... and of highest importance" and that "to work together with such a diverse country" also offered opportunities for German businesses.

She stressed that diplomacy is not a zero-sum game and that while Berlin was building strong ties with the rising Asian powers, transatlantic ties remained "of paramount importance".

- 'Impact whole world' -

Modi's tour also leads him to Spain, France and Russia -- but not to former colonial power Britain.

Britain, which is set to leave the EU by 2019, wants to boost trade with India, the world's fastest-growing major economy, which is meanwhile also trying to revive stalled, decade-old trade talks with the EU.

Modi and Merkel led a joint cabinet meeting grouping foreign, economy, environment and other ministers in their fourth intergovernmental consultations -- a format Germany has only with a few countries, also including China, Israel and France.

Both sides signed agreements in fields from sustainable urban development to vocational jobs training, digital technology and railway safety and agreed on German development aid and investments worth around one billion euros ($1.1 billion) a year.

Germany is India's largest trading partner in the EU, and more than 1,600 German companies with over 400,000 employees operate on the subcontinent.

Two-way trade has more than tripled over the past decade to over 17 billion euros ($19 billion), of which German exports make up almost 10 billion euros.

Modi wrote before his trip that "India and Germany are large democracies, major economies and important players in regional and global affairs".

"Our strategic partnership is based on democratic values," he wrote in a Facebook entry, contrasting India with the one-party state China.

A German foreign ministry spokesman, Martin Schaefer, stressed that India enjoys rapid economic growth and development and "will soon be the most populous country on Earth".

"Everything that happens in India -- politically, economically and socially -- has, because of the country's size and importance, a direct impact on the whole world, including us."

bur-fz/hmn/mt

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Trump has 'weakened' the West, hurt EU interests: German FM
Berlin (AFP) May 29, 2017
Germany unleashed a volley of criticism Monday against US President Donald Trump, slamming his "short-sighted" policies that have "weakened the West" and hurt European interests. The sharp words from Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel came after Trump concluded his first official tour abroad which took him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Brussels and then Italy for a G7 summit. They followed Chanc ... read more

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