EU-China Summit to Discuss Debt Crisis, Airline Tax

Chinese and European leaders will gather for a summit on Tuesday to tackle Europe's critical debt crisis in addition to other economic and political issues, the BBC reported.

The 14th China-E.U. summit, which was postponed last October due to the debt crisis, will see the European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Barroso meet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Feb. 14, 2012, in Beijing.

The two EU leaders would also hold separate talks with President Hu Jintao on Wednesday, the news service said.

The summit discussion may likely include the ongoing crisis in Syria and Iran. Leaders and officials may also discuss Europe's new law of imposing charges on airline carbon emissions, for which China has banned its airlines from paying.

The top agenda of the summit, however, is to address the ongoing debt crisis in the European Union, with assistance from China.

We believe that as China's largest trading partner and the largest economy in the world, it is important for the European Union to resolve this issue, foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin was quoted as saying to the BBC on Monday.

The summit, therefore, will aim at further strengthening the EU-China partnership, with officials pushing for further Chinese support and investment in eurozone bail-out funds.

According to AFP, EU had previously called on China, who holds the largest foreign exchange reserves in the world, to help debt-stricken nations in the continent. Beijing is now considering assistance through the International Monetary Fund or bailout funds.

Helping stability in the European market is actually helping ourselves... We have to keep import and export policies stable, Jiabao said in a statement on AFP.

As China has made large investments in the EU, it comes as no surprise that the nation wants to prevent further weakening of the European continent. There are concerns, though, that China's willingness to get involved in the debt crisis will give the country more influence over struggling European economies.

On its part, China has addressed those fears by saying it has no intention to buy out Europe or control Europe, as noted in the Web site of People's Daily, BBC said.

The summit comes soon after Moody's downgraded its ratings for Italy, Spain and Portugal, with a negative outlook for France, Britain and Austria.