Mr. Serge Abou, new ambassador of the EU to China, has recently accepted a special interview of our reporter, elucidating his view on how to deepen the relations between the EU and China, how to expand the cooperation and exchanges between the two parties in the fields of economy and trade, science and technology and his personal impression of China as well.
Q. How did you come to feel interested in China?
A. It has things to do with two persons in this regard. One is Romano Prodi, former president of the EU. As an old friend of China he paid many visits to
Beijing and other cities in China and had many times of interviews and meetings with Chinese leaders and had done a lot of work for the development of the EU and China relations. Another is my 25-year old son who is an engineer, ever been working in Suzhou for almost one year as an employee of Loreal Company in 2002. He likes China very much and hopes that I can come to work in China. And so I made China my choice and I think the task is a sort of glory and a mission of challenge as well.
Q. You've been in China for almost three months and during the period you've had connections with some government officials and have been a "visitor to the two Congressional Sessions". What's your impression of China now?
A. China can be considered as an interesting country. And my work here will offer me many chances to get to know the country more fully and in an all-round way. The EU has some projects in Liaoning, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces and we would be pleased to see active participation by local governments in the projects and would like to see satisfactory outcomes too.
Over the past 20 years China has witnessed 300 million people shake off the poverty. This is an outstanding achievement. Many developing countries have adopted similar policies but not as successful as that in China. At the present moment, China is lodged in a transitional period and it is rising up both in political and economic statuses in the world. It is expected that the EU can have a more extensive cooperation with China and will go hand in hand to cope with challenges so as to provide a peaceful, stable and safe international environment for the mankind of the world.
Q. Last December, the EU agreed in principle to lift the ban of military sales on China that had already been imposed for as long as 15 years. Is there any change of the EU stand on the issue so far? Or whether there is any schedule for it?
A. There is no change of the EU stand so far on the issue. The EU has the political intention for a continuous effort to lift the ban of the military sales on China but this does not mean that the EU wants to sell more weapons to China. The EU has no definite schedule on the issue and the work is still being carried on now and what I can say is to carry it out as quickly as we can.
Q. What do you intend to do for expanding and deepening the EU-China relations in your terms of office?
A. The EU-China relation is now exerting a daily increasing influence on the development of the world economy and politics in recent years and so far we see a very frequent contact at the high levels between the two parties of the EU and China with high-level meetings almost once a week. In order to better develop the bilateral cooperation of the two parties we are, at present, making efforts to work out an utterly new framework agreement for the EU-China economic and trade cooperation. The existing agreement was signed in 1985 and over the past 20 years great changes have taken place on both sides of us. During the past 20 years, the EU has taken in 15 new member countries and moreover, the EU expansion is still being carried on and we'll see Romania and Bulgaria soon to join in. Great changes have taken place in China too. Due to the reasonable policies and a great demand in the market China has realized a speedy development. However, there also occurred some new problems. Therefore, the legal and policy bases for the present framework agreement have all been changed and the two parties need to have a new agreement so as to enlarge and deepen the bilateral cooperation to meet with the challenges in future.
Q. This year is the 30th anniversary for the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and the EU and during the past 30 years, the EU and China have developed an effective cooperation in the fields of economy and trade and science and technology as well. So I would like to ask what are the major cooperation projects to be carried out between the two parties of the EU and China? And what is your view on the perspective of the cooperation?
A. Over the past 30 years, the EU has carried on an extensive cooperation with China and obtained outstanding achievements. Probably, many people know that the EU is a biggest trade partner of China and China the 2nd one for the EU. Besides, the EU is one of the big investors in China. So far the investment by the EU companies in China has come to some seven percent of the total foreign direct investment in China.
The two sides have witnessed a very extensive and deep cooperation in the sci-tech field too. Except the two projects of the Galilean Plan and the international thermo-nuclear fusion testing reactor the two sides are also carrying out cooperation in regard of the bio-technology, information technology, industry-standardization, environmental protection and pollution control and law and elementary education as well. At the present moment, we are working on the EU-China plan for the development cooperation in the period of 2007 ¨C 2012, of which we've already worked out a clear goal for the cooperation in environment protection, namely the EU will inject in 50 million Euros (around RMB 500 million yuan) to carry out the cooperation with the China State Administration of Environment Protection for reducing the pollution and the saving of energy resources.
I think there are still wider spaces for the EU and China to deepen their cooperation. China is now confronted with such problems as serious pollution, shortage of energy resources, insufficient social insurance and an aging population. The EU has already accumulated a lot of experiences in this regard for China to draw with. Besides, the EU has so far only 2-3 million tourists from China and the figure is quite insufficient. The EU owns many excellent universities of the world and they would like to attract more Chinese students to study there. Aside from the EU companies to invest in China we also hope that there will be more Chinese companies to seek for development in Europe and we also hope there are more Chinese scholars to come to Europe for taking part in sci-tech research programs¡the EU and China may have a higher goal for cooperation in many fields and aspects and can do still more and even better.
Reference: Mr. Serge Abou was born in 1946 and a French. He started to work in the European Union in 1974, working as an executive chief in charge of general administrative and economic affairs, director of trade and relief policy and senior advisor to Romano Prodi, former president of the European Union Commission, etc. Starting from January 2005 he began to take up the post of the head of the EU delegation to China and the People's Republic of Mongolia (again known as ambassador) and last March 25, he presented his credential to Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China.
