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Former top European official adopts bullish tone on China-EU trade talks as deadline nears

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Daniel Renin ShanghaiPublished: 8:30pm, 31 Aug 2026

A former top European Union official has struck a bullish tone on the outlook for China-EU trade talks, saying he expects progress in the coming months.

Charles Michel, president of the European Council from 2019 to 2024, told reporters in a media briefing in Shanghai on Monday that both sides were willing to pursue more common ground through talks.

“On the EU side there is an expectation that by the end of October or November, or at least by the end of the year … there will be some progress achieved in the fields of those four tracks,” he said, referring to a consultation mechanism between Beijing and Brussels established in June, where four topics – trade and investment, export controls, intellectual property rights and World Trade Organization reform – had been discussed.

At that time, Brussels set a three-month deadline for rebalancing trade ties, amid fears that cheap Chinese imports were helping to deindustrialise swathes of the European manufacturing economy.

“China needs the access to the European Union’s markets, and China does not have the alternatives,” Michel said, who is now a professor at the China Europe International Business School.

He added that EU market access was of important political and economic value, with Brussels using it as leverage during negotiations with Beijing.

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