The European Union’s Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic has warned China that its “impressive rise must not come at the expense of the European economy” as the bloc continues to push for Beijing to loosen export controls on rare earths and act on trade diversion. Speaking in Brussels two days after meeting Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, Sefcovic stated that “China has a responsibility to match its support for multilateralism with full respect for the rules meant to ensure fairness and equity. Hence, our calls on China to address systemic issues affecting Europe and other partners, such as overcapacity, subsidies, market access barriers, critical minerals export restrictions, investment conditions and trade diversion,” the Slovakian official said at the Brussels Economic Security Forum. “We are committed to rebalancing this relationship and establishing a level playing field in trade and investment, with symmetrical market opening.”
Sefcovic met Wang on the sidelines of an OECD ministerial summit in Paris and said he raised as a top priority China’s export controls on rare earth minerals and magnets, which have threatened to undermine European industries. The issue has become a major stumbling block in efforts to improve ties. “We spent a lot of time talking about the magnets, the new system they introduced and how important it is to have transparency, to have the proper supplies of this very important commodity for our industry,” said Sefcovic, focusing on a key product for which the Chinese government has added export restrictions. While the EU would continue turning to China to tackle “bilateral and global challenges”, Sefcovic said, it was “equally important to address our differences, as the quality of our cooperation impacts not only our industries and our people, but also the entire global economy”.
China processes about 90% of the world’s rare earth minerals and introduced export controls on their shipments in April in retaliation for Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. Rare earths consist of 17 elements. On April 4, Beijing added seven of these – dysprosium, gadolinium, lutetium, samarium, scandium, terbium and yttrium – to its export control list, plus several rare earth magnets, two days after Trump announced his tariff move, meaning licenses are now required for their export. European businesses have been pushing the Chinese government to streamline and speed up the approval process. Sefcovic asked Wang to separate requests for minerals, which could have military uses, from magnets, which are used more for civilian purposes, the South China Morning Post reports.
