The European Union (EU) and China displayed a united front over the need to fight climate change, while revealing nagging differ- ences over the path to deeper trade and investment ties.

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said Europe and China must lead the global transition to clean-energy technologies after the US decided to withdraw from the landmark climate-protection accord reached by almost 200 countries in Paris two years ago.

“There is no backsliding on the Paris agreement,” Juncker told an EU-China business conference in Brussels earlier this month. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told the same audience that EU-China ties help to counter “the growing uncertainties in the world”.

The two leaders spoke less than 24 hours after US President Donald Trump provoked worldwide disappointment and anger by announcing plans to withdraw from the Paris pact, which curbs fossil-fuel production. Juncker said fighting climate change is “more important today than yesterday”.

Lingering EU-China tensions over trade and investment emerged at the conference as European officials pressed the Chinese government to tackle overcapacity in domestic industries such as steel and to ease restrictions on foreign investors. Li revived a Chinese call for talks on an EU-China investment accord to be accompanied by a move toward a broader free-trade agreement.

EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom highlighted Europe’s stance that an investment accord is a condition for a push for a free-trade deal. She pressed Chinese authorities to make good on a pledge by President Xi Jinping to a global audience in January to further open the market in China.

“We are all waiting now for the remarks by the President to translate into action and make trade and investment more open, more free,” Malmstrom told the Brussels conference. “Our ongoing negotiations on an investment agreement are a constructive means to rebalance the situation and expand trade and investment.”
She cited a study last year concluding that many European companies found it harder to do business in China.

“As a consequence, EU investment in China is at its lowest level in years, while Chinese investment in the EU reaches record levels,” Malmstrom said. China needs to ensure “reciprocity” for European businesses in the Chinese market, she said.