The two-day E.U.-China summit is scheduled to take place in Beijing beginning on July 24th, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel attending to discuss the future of the bilateral relationship and trade. However, citing the instability of the global financial market, leaders and analysts are rather pessimistic about the talks.

During the World Peace Forum in Beijing on July 11, Italy’s ambassador to China, Massimo Ambrosetti, expressed his lack of confidence in this year’s summit: “I am sorry to be pessimistic – the next E.U.-China summit will be a wonderful summit with wonderful statements of principles, but I doubt that we will get some strategic incremental progress.” Ambrosetti also mentioned that part of his discouragement come from the Trump administration’s tariff policies: “We have to realistically consider that the preparation of the summit was, of course, influenced by the negotiations on tariffs – between the E.U. and the U.S., between China and the U.S. – it is a terribly complicated context.” 

Over the past few weeks, tensions between the E.U. and China have escalated. After the E.U. moved to restrict Chinese firms from participating in public tenders for medical devices, Beijing quickly responded with import controls on those same goods. Meanwhile, China’s long-signaled tariffs on E.U. brandy officially took effect earlier this month. Both sides have since stepped up their criticisms, signaling a broader deterioration in ties. During an interview with C.N.B.C., Grzegorz Stec, a senior analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, stated that E.U.-China relations remain weighed down by a range of structural tensions, many of which stem from conflicting economic priorities: “The E.U. and China are broadly on a colliding trajectory in terms of their trade and industrial policy concerns,” he told C.N.B.C. Among the key friction points, Stec pointed to China’s excess industrial capacity and the resulting diversion of exports to the European market. “Beijing’s increasingly pressing need to export contradicts the E.U.’s need to protect its own industrial base,” he added.

Aside from economics and trade, political roadblocks such as China’s blurry stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine still frustrate E.U. leaders. Last week, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in a speech that China had flooded global markets with its overcapacity, limited access to its market, and de facto enabled Russia’s war economy, setting a dissatisfied tone for the upcoming summit. According to China Briefing, China is planning a long-term “waiting game,” taking advantage of a fractured and overstretched Europe that needs Chinese cooperation, regardless of concessions: “while E.U. leaders have expressed openness to renewed dialogue, they increasingly face the challenge of engaging China from a position weakened by internal divisions and external pressures.” 

China’s close partnership with Hungary, underscored by high-profile investments and Prime Minister Orbán’s overt alignment with Beijing, offers China a rare foothold within the E.U. However, this relationship only highlights the broader fragmentation across the bloc. As other E.U. member states push back against China’s trade practices and geopolitical positioning, the path forward remains uncertain. With trust at a low point and strategic differences deepening, the tone ahead of the July summit is one of polite formality rather than genuine progress, leaving E.U.-China relations on an increasingly frosty trajectory.