Joanna Rossiter Joanna Rossiter

Beijing is quietly challenging Brussels

The new agreement between China and the US on climate change, announced this week, contained the usual worthy overtures. Both nations reasserted their commitment to fighting the ‘climate crisis’ by ‘co-operating with each other and with other countries.’ But can the West really take the Chinese Communist party at its word?

Judging by Beijing’s activity in the Western Balkans, the answer is a resounding no. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chinese state-owned energy companies have built four coal power plants since 2010, with a further four planned – made possible by the Chinese Development Bank.

Europe’s political elites haven’t yet grasped how Beijing’s growing influence in the region is being used to counter EU expansion

China’s belt and road charm offensive is no secret in the West. What Europe’s political elites haven’t yet grasped is how Beijing’s growing influence in the region is being used to counter EU expansion. Over the last decade European banks have stopped investing in coal in order to comply with the Paris Accord and the European Commission’s push for half of Europe to become carbon neutral by 2030. Chinese investors have readily filled the void, targeting poorer countries in the Balkans that are considering EU membership.

The EU specifically states that in order to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, no more coal power plants must be built by member states. Countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, which have begun building coal plants with Chinese-state owned companies, may well have compromised their journey towards EU membership. Existing EU countries are also being targeted. If China presses ahead with its plans for a €1 billion (£860 million) thermal power plant in Romania, it will control 15 per cent of Romania’s energy supply.

The European Commission’s signing of its new Comprehensive Agreement on Investment with China makes it difficult for Brussels to object to these projects, despite many of them contravening EU law on the provision of state aid for coal power plants.

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