EU – Participation of Jean-Yves Le Drian in the EU Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (via videoconference, 29 May 2020)

Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian will take part in tomorrow’s videoconference of EU foreign ministers. They will discuss the following points:

• Relations between the EU and China: the meeting will largely be devoted to preparations for the EU-China summit and the summit of European and Chinese heads of state and government. The meeting will serve to bolster European unity and cohesion on our main goals for these summits, the most important being strengthening multilateralism, re-balancing the European-Chinese relationship by improving reciprocity, and an ambitious agenda on fighting climate change. France will stress the importance of implementing the March 2019 Joint Communication by European institutions on the strategic outlook for EU-China relations, both internal and external.

• Asia-Pacific: the ministers will review the EU’s response to the Covid-19 crisis in the Asia-Pacific region and more broadly will discuss political, economic and security relations with the Indo-Pacific countries. On this occasion, France will encourage the EU to expand cooperation with these countries on regional crises and to develop an ambitious agenda on cooperation in the areas of health; combating climate change, in connection with trade policy, among other things; and sustainable connectivity and digital affairs.

• The latest political and security developments in Afghanistan. The ministers will reaffirm that the level of EU commitment in that country will depend on progress on the political process and respect for human rights.