Von der Leyen warns China talks must deliver tangible results

Ursula von der Leyen used a stop in Cork to tell Beijing that Europe still wants dialogue, but only if the talks produce measurable results. The European Commission president said the EU had to stay engaged with China, while Maroš Šefčovič had already set October as the point by which Brussels expected “tangible results” from the talks.

The message was more than a call for better relations. Von der Leyen said Brussels had to be “very clear” about what it wants fixed: subsidized overcapacity in goods entering Europe, the lack of market access for European companies in China, and unfair competition created by subsidies the bloc does not want on its own market. A long-run comparison in the research notes says Chinese firms received roughly three to eight times more government support than companies in OECD countries between 2005 and 2024, a gap that helps explain why European leaders now treat industrial policy and trade access as the same problem.

The numbers behind the dispute are stark. Eurostat says the EU’s goods trade deficit with China reached €359.8 billion in 2025, after exports fell 6.5% to €199.6 billion and imports rose 6.4% to €559.4 billion. The gap widened again in the first quarter of 2026 to €98 billion, the highest quarterly deficit since the third quarter of 2022. The European Commission says China is the EU’s second-largest trading partner for goods and its third-largest trading partner overall, with total goods trade reaching €732 billion in 2024. The bloc still ran a €21.3 billion services surplus with China in 2025, but that cushion has not offset the manufacturing imbalance that dominates the political debate.

Von der Leyen’s warning also fit a wider shift in Brussels. At the EU-China summit in Beijing on 24 July 2025, she said the relationship had reached an “inflection point,” and EU officials have since pushed for “concrete solutions” on reciprocity and overcapacity. Šefčovič met He Lifeng, Wang Wentao and Sun Meijun in Beijing on 31 March 2025, underscoring how much of the diplomacy has already been spent on the same set of complaints.

The Cork visit, part of the Commission’s 2 and 3 July 2026 trip to Ireland, came as Brussels paired outreach with defense. A new EU steel-protection regulation entered into application on 1 July 2026, a reminder that the Commission is keeping talks open while preparing to act if the imbalance does not improve. Von der Leyen’s line was blunt: the EU is “prepared for everything” and has “all instruments on the table.”