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\n 14\/10\/2025 – 18:23 GMT+2\n <\/p>\n
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European Commissioner for Trade Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d took aim at China after an EU trade ministers’ meeting in Denmark on Tuesday, considering the EU \u201ccannot stand by\u201d since Beijing announced export controls on rare earth-related technologies.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last couple of days, we’ve been again reminded how unfortunately commodities, product sensitive technologies could be weaponized, and how Europe has to be ready,\u201d \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d said as he was describing the impact of new Chinese controls on rare earth on EU business.<\/p>\n
China announced on 9 October new export controls on technologies related to rare earths \u2014 materials essential to the digital, automotive, energy, and defence sectors \u2014 making obtaining an official license mandatory for exporting technologies used in the extraction and smelting of these elements.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is unprocessable,\u201d \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d said, explaining that 50% of the applications submitted by European companies have received China’s green light so far and that the process is a real headache, with intrusive requests from the Chinese authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an insistence on very detailed photo documentation of the production line process as well as the information on the entire supply chain,\u201d the Commissioner explained. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not something with which we can live in the future because it’s really hampering the economic operations of companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue is expected to be on the agenda of a high-level exchange between Brussels and Beijing next week.<\/p>\n
Europeans are said to be threading gently with Beijing, as some member states are reluctant to jeopardise Chinese investment in their territories.<\/p>\n
‘More robust attitude towards China’ needed<\/p>\n
Chinese automakers are currently expanding across Europe, with BYD setting up a plant in Hungary, Chery in Poland, and Changan and NIO considering settling in Europe too.<\/p>\n
The rare-earth export controls announced by China might push the EU to take a stricter stance \u2014 possibly by demanding technology transfers from Beijing, just as China benefited from such arrangements when European companies set up operations on its soil \u2014 some decision-makers have implied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to find ways to have a more robust attitude towards China,\u201d Danish Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen stated on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we in invite Chinese investments to Europe, it must come with the precondition that we also have some kind of technology transfer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rasmussen, who chaired the meeting of EU trade ministers, nonetheless clarified that discussions among EU member states still needed to continue on the issue.<\/p>\n
Trade tensions between Beijing and Brussels are nothing new.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the EU imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, prompting Beijing to retaliate with several investigations into European products and the announcement of tariffs on EU brandy and pork. An investigation is also ongoing on EU dairy products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 14\/10\/2025 – 18:23 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT European Commissioner for Trade Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d took aim at China after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,114,33013,61,60,52815,12983],"class_list":{"0":"post-81253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-eu-policy","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-maros-sefcovic","14":"tag-rare-earths"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}