The push comes as the Commission has stepped up engagement with Chinese officials over the summer as Brussels seeks to reduce the EU’s €1 billion-a-day trade deficit with the Asian giant. The meeting will happen two days after Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers her landmark State of the Union speech, in which she is expected to address the EU’s anxiety about the threat China poses to its industrial base.
After technical talks with Beijing, Šefčovič will speak by videoconference with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, in mid-September before heading to Beijing in early October.
Should these talks not yield results, national leaders have urged the EU executive to devise new ways to tackle China’s industrial overcapacity in time for their mid-October summit.
The Sept. 18 meeting is expected to bring together CEOs from the machinery, electrical components, automotive and chemical sectors, two people familiar with the event said.
“I’m glad that I hear more often that even the business leaders themselves — many of them — are realizing that the cost of diversification is smaller than the cost of disruption,” Šefčovič told POLITICO last week.
“That’s the logic which I would like to develop further. I’m inviting the key stakeholders for [a] special forum.”
Šefčovič said such discussions help shape the Commission’s thinking on how such a tool should work.
Among the input sought is “what would be the best design of such an instrument, where we can have the buy-in for the economic leadership of our leading companies,” he said.