STRASBOURG, France – The European Commission sharpened its China message on Wednesday ahead of an EU leaders’ debate in Brussels, as the bloc looks for ways to rebalance an “unsustainable” trade relationship.

“When it comes to China, our approach remains one of engagement and dialogue, while firmly defending our economic and security interests, which are increasingly interconnected,” Maroš Šefčovič, the Commission vice-president, told MEPs in plenary in Strasbourg.

EU leaders are due to discuss China and global geoeconomic imbalances over dinner on Thursday, although no written conclusions on China are expected from the summit.

The discussion comes after the European Commission enraged Beijing by proposing a ‘Made in Europe’ law designed to curb China’s role in strategic industrial sectors.

Šefčovič insisted that the EU was not seeking to cut ties with Beijing, saying the Commission’s line remained “de-risking” rather than decoupling, as the latter would be “neither desirable nor realistic”.

But he added that China must be treated as a critical partner with whom engagement should intensify “with a clear purpose of rebalancing”.

“We will push for more reciprocity,” Šefčovič said, pointing to what he called the EU’s “unsustainable growing trade deficit” with China.

Manfred Weber, leader of the Parliament’s largest political group, the centre-right EPP, said Europe’s trade deficit with China amounted to “€1 billion a day, or €360 billion a year”. He also accused Beijing of flooding European markets with subsidised industrial overcapacity.

One possible instrument in Brussels’ toolbox is the EU’s anti-coercion instrument, dubbed the ‘trade bazooka‘, which allows the bloc to retaliate against economic coercion with measures including tariffs and restrictions on trade and investment.

“This week’s European Council is likely to mark one of the most important moments in Europe’s China debate in years,” Andrew Small, director of the Asia programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said.

The China debate will sit alongside a wider geopolitical agenda, including Russia’s war in Ukraine, EU enlargement, and the fallout from the latest US-Iran framework agreement that aims to ease tensions and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

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