Instead of seizing the Rare momentum of the 50th anniversary of EU-China relations Brussels remembers now the Rare Earths thing of last April

It took 3 whole months for the European Parliament to discuss last April’s move of China to impose restrictions on the exports of important rare earth elements. While this had taken place 3 months ago as a Chinese response to the MAGA obscene tariff terror, the Parliament motivated by the “agony” to be productive moments before summer recess and then shut everything down until September and enjoy hefty holidays under the sun, it rushed to vote last week a resolution to protest China’s rare earths decision that dates back to April 2025.

If anything, one would anticipate the European Parliament to vote for a resolution in a timely manner. In 3 months time science fiction can occur in international diplomacy like the hoax Iran-US war, the Trump administration can further escalate the world disorder or the Trump-Musk bromance can turn into a fierce animosity even. Too subtle?

With all this summer fever in Brussels the good Parliamentarians, guardians of the rule of law in the EU and all the EU interests as it should be, omitted to consider that in a couple of weeks from now, 24-25 July, when they will be in recess wearing bathing suits and flip flops at the beach, the hard working bureaucrats of the European Commission and European Council will be traveling all the way to Beijing to attend the EU-China Summit.

Respectively Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa together with their cabinets will fly to China for this important Summit taking place at the year 50 of the China-EU diplomatic relations, taking place at an era of trade disruption and return to the Hoover middle ages of global trade taking the world back some 100 years. So, while the EU should have been strategically planning its stance at the crucial meeting the Parlamentarians threw a water bomb to spoil this momentum with a product that is already expired and the date writes on April 4, 2025. Too subtle again?

The relations between the No 3 economy (EU) in the world and No 2 (China) are not exactly very great at this very moment for various reasons, mostly trade spats like electric vehicles and liquor products. But at least China put some effort to set a fertile ground in Beijing for July by lifting the duties earlier this month on huge European brandy producers like Pernod Ricard. Notwithstanding, the Parliament has its own political ticking bomb and that is, believe it or not, summer holidays?

There is much discussion over the upcoming EU-China Summit and sadly it seems that the Chinese part is more eager to have a fruitful summit than the European end, which treats it like a tea party that has to attend. Naturally, there is much on the plate to discuss and a couple of days are not enough to resolve all issues but at least Summits like this one should stick to their honest symbolism, celebrating the diplomatic ties of half a century and expressing a commitment to work together on the problems as well as their specific tangible solutions.

That the Parliament backfired can be kindly attributed to the summer heat but it needs to be clear though here that what is at stake is noneother than the mere world stability. The MAGA administration won’t stop dismantling trade order and any first year student in Economics can understant that this is bound to cause an upcoming global recession. The EU will have to realize then the hard way that the old pal at the other side of the pond turned out to be a foe.

And indeed the EU looks at Asia to overcome the global trade imbalance that Trump causes, like Indonesia for example, but let’s face it, can Indonesia compete with China in terms of trade power and efficiency? The latter is overly rhetoric.

The widely acknowledged lack of visionary leadership in the EU nowadays doesn’t allow our EU leaders to see the obvious, that the EU has grown so fast in the past decades also thanks to the trade blossom with China. Previously, the US was dictating the EU to follow an anti-China stance but now the US will not spare the EU from the economic catastrophy of the DC initiated trade war.

One doesn’t need much space between the ears to realize that if the EU were to sit down seriously to discuss the problems and their solutions with China, more good would come from that than harm. The other choice of course is to keep parroting the US, although the US is fiercely anti-EU, at least in trade. Too subtle too?

Let’s see if the EU and China can discuss openly at the end of this month under the heat of the Beijing summer sun and come to a common commitment to mend the world trade and policy disorder, not just make the cracks even bigger. If this momentum of the EU-China trade pillar is gone for good, then the world economy will dive into recession in such a perfectly predictable way as so much certain it is that the European Parliament will be in summer recess in a few days from now.