A week of preliminary exchanges between EU and Chinese trade officials will now give way to a round of formal gatherings and summits across Europe before June closes. Yet a decisive result remains far from assured.

The month ends with talks in Brussels on 29-30 June between EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and China’s commerce minister Wang Wentao.

Preparatory trips between the two sides are planned so the officials can hold substantive talks that deliver concrete outcomes, Šefčovič told reporters in Paris after meeting Chinese trade envoy Li Chenggang on the sidelines of an OECD session.

“I hope that we will have very detailed discussion on how to address this growing deficit, how to make sure that also EU exports to China will grow, because China is a huge economy, but we export to China less than we export to Switzerland,” he said.

The comments underline the EU’s goal of shrinking China’s expanding trade surplus with the EU-27, which reached €360bn last year and has grown further in the opening quarter of this year.

They also signal that tariffs alone have failed to deliver results.

In autumn 2024 the EU Commission added tariffs of 17 to 37 percent on Chinese electric vehicles, citing unfair state support for the sector. Even so, Chinese car shipments to Europe climbed 26 percent from 2024 to 2025, reaching nearly 1.2 million units.

The EU position gained support from an OECD study released on Tuesday (2 June). The report, covering 38 mostly European and North American nations, found Chinese companies receive three to eight times more state subsidies than rivals.

China dismissed the findings as one-sided and arbitrary, maintaining that its subsidies comply with WTO rules.

Beijing continues to downplay the seriousness of the disagreement with the EU.