MERICS Members Briefing: New Impetus for the EU’s strategy on China and Indo-Pacific

In this exclusive MERICS Members Briefing, a distinguished panel of representatives from government, parliament and business took stock of the EU’s latest decisions and shared their analysis of what to expect next.

Within only a few days, the Commission and the High Representative put forward a Joint Communication on cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, President Ursula von der Leyen addressed new plans for the EU’s Connectivity Strategy as part of her State of the Union speech and the EU Parliament voted on a EU-China strategy revision, adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee. What could have been a good week for the EU's policies towards Asia was however overshadowed by the new and unexpected trilateral military alliance in the Indo-Pacific between the US, UK and Australia (AUKUS).

Speaker:
Ambassador Petra Sigmund – Director General for Asia and the Pacific in the German Federal Foreign Office
Reinhard Buetikofer – Member of the European Parliament and Chair of the EP’s Delegation for Relations with China
Luisa Santos – Deputy Director General of Business Europe

Moderator: 
Bernhard Bartsch, Director External Relations, MERICS