According to Reuters, European Commission President “Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa plan to press Chinese leaders on rare earths and the war in Ukraine” at the July 24 EU-China summit meeting, but “there is little hope for headway.” Reuters explains that “expectations are at rock bottom,” and that already the summit was cut back from two days to one day, supposedly for “scheduling reasons.”
“The mood is extremely pessimistic in Europe regarding the summit,” Mathieu Duchatel, a director at the Institut Montaigne think tank in Paris, told Reuters. “There is a sense that the gloves are completely off on the Chinese side.... They sense the trans-Atlantic relationship has weakened and are trying to seize the opportunity.”
