Des visiteurs mal intentionnés ont profité de l’absence de Bob Sinclar de son domicile pendant les fêtes pour voler chez lui de nombreux bijoux et vêtements.

A peine revenu des fêtes de Noël, le DJ français et sa famille ont dû faire face à une bien mauvaise surprise. Leur luxueux appartement du IIIe arrondissement à Paris a été complètement fouillé et pillé. Comme le révèle le Parisien aujourd’hui sur son site internet, le ou les cambrioleurs ont forcé la porte de Bob Sinclar et se sont allègrement servis en bijoux et vêtements.

L’autre information que certains retiendront, est que le célèbre DJ français déclare que le préjudice s’élève à 150000€. Une somme conséquente, voir ahurissante pour certains mais finalement compréhensible quand ont sait que Bob Sinclar peut être payé entre 15 et 50000 euros pour un de ses shows en clubs. La vente de ses albums par millions et son statut de producteur sous le label Yellow Music, ont également permis à l’un des piliers de la French Touch, au même rang que David Guetta son ami de longue date, de s’offrir un certain confort de vie. Amateur de belles choses autant que de bonne musique, Christophe le Friant (de son vrai nom) a toujours soigné son look en y mettant visiblement le prix.

Les enquêteurs du 1er district de la police judiciaire à Paris ont ouvert une enquête pour tenter de retrouver les voleurs de Bob Sinclar. En attendant, ce sampleur de génie continue son dur labeur aux quatre coins du monde et se produira à l’Amnesia de Miami le 31 décembre.

The beat goes on (le rythme continue). Bob Sinclar va devoir se fier à son propre titre.

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L’annonce des nommés aux César 2012 ne semble pas ravir Mathieu Kassovitz… Le réalisateur qui a obtenu une unique nomination pour son film L’Ordre et la Morale a laissé éclater sa colère sur Twitter…

Pendant que Maïwenn (nommée 13 fois pour son film «Polisse») et Omar Sy (nommé dans la catégorie meilleur acteur pour «Intouchables») jubilent, Mathieu Kassovitz pousse un gros coup de gueule. Vendredi soir, le cinéaste n’a pas hésité à tweeter un message bien gratiné en apprenant que son long-métrage n’avait obtenu qu’une seule nomination aux César dans la catégorie Meilleur scénario adapté.

Mathieu Kassovitz s’est totalement lâché en écrivant: «L’ordre et la morale. Une seule nomination aux césarS. J’*** le cinéma français. Allez vous faire b*** avec vos films de merde.» Et de poursuivre quelques minutes plus tard : «Je m’en fous des césars. Je n’y ai jamais mis les pieds. Je suis juste choqué par le manque d’intérêt. Je devrais faire des films plus simples.»

Suite aux réactions des internautes, l’artiste s’est excusé samedi matin avant de confier qu’il respectait tout de même quelques pointures du cinéma français comme «Gaspard, Hazanavicius, Boukrief, Vestiel,Gavras…». Nous voila rassurés.

La cérémonie des César, qui se déroulera le 24 février prochain, se fera donc certainement sans Mathieu Kassovitz… Une habitude pour le réalisateur qui avait déjà boudé l’évènement en 1996 alors qu’il recevait le César du meilleur film pour La Haine.

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Le célèbre metteur en scène Claude Miller est mort mercredi soir. Une information révélée par sa société de production. Il laisse derrière lui une magnifique filmographie, riche de films comme Garde à vue, L’effrontée ou encore Le secret.

Il était l’un des grands réalisateurs français, dont les films ont pour la plupart connu de beaux succès du public, même si la profession de ne l’a jamais distingué. Claude Miller est décédé mercredi à l’âge de 70 ans.

On se souviendra de lui pour des films comme Garde à vue, et la magnifique rencontre entre Michel Serrault, Lino Ventura et Romy Schneider, Mortelle randonnée, encore une fois avec Michel Serrault mais aussi cette fois Isabelle Adjani. Il fait faire ses premiers pas au cinéma à la jeune Charlotte Gainsbourg, dans L’effrontée, qu’il retrouvera dans La petite voleuse.

L’un de ses derniers films, Le secret, avec Patrick Bruel, a remporté un grand succès et bouleversé les spectateurs avec son histoire adaptée d’un livre de Philippe Grimbert.

Il venait d’achever le tournage de d’une adaptation du roman de François Mauriac, Thérès Desqueyroux, avec Audrey Tautou.

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Quelques semaines avant la sortie de son prochain album, Johnny Hallyday propose mardi un premier single, L’attente, dont un extrait a été dévoilé ce lundi. Ses problèmes de santé sont derrière lui, place maintenant au rock’n roll.

En 1986, Johnny Hallyday chantait Je t’attends, écrit et composé par Jean-Jacques Goldman. Vingt-six ans plus tard, il interprète L’attente, un titre signé cette fois Miossec et Daran. Un extrait vient d’être diffusé en exclusivité par RTL lundi matin et l’intégralité de la chanson sera sur toutes les ondes à partir de demain, date également de sa commercialisation sur les plateformes de téléchargement légal.

L’attente, et son titre prédestiné, annonce l’arrivée, très attendue donc, du prochain album de Johnny Hallyday. Très attendue car il suit Jamais seul, l’album composé par M et qui n’a pas connu le succès public escompté au regard de l’association de ces deux talents, et surtout parce qu’il arrive après les pépins de santé qu’a eus Johnny ces dernières semaines et qui ont perturbé la fin de ses vacances et l’enregistrement du disque.

A propos de ses épisodes hospitaliers, la star du rock a déclaré à RTL: «J‘ai eu une bronchite qui a eu du mal à partir. Mais ce n’était rien de très sérieux. Je traîne ça depuis cet été. J’ai dû attraper ça dans un stade. Je ne me suis pas soigné. J’ai attrapé une mauvaise bronchite et cela s’est déclaré quand j’étais en vacances à Saint-Barth (…) Arrêtez de vous inquiéter, je vais très bien. Je suis en pleine forme, on va faire du grand rock’n’roll».

Du rock, c’est tout ce qu’attendent les fans de Johnny. Avant de pouvoir écouter les nouvelles chansons de leur idole sur ce disque prévu le 12 novembre prochain, ils vont pouvoir très vite aller le voir sur scène puisque la star reprend dans quelques jours sa grande tournée entamée en avril dernier et qui l’a vu passer au Stade de France.

Crețu mounts defence of regional aid

Romania’s nominee gives a confident appearance despite a lack of expertise.

The European Parliament’s press release on the opening of confirmation hearings this week carried the headline “scrutiny time”. But the MEPs on the committee on regional development clearly viewed Corina Cretu as an ally rather than a subject of scrutiny. There seemed to be a closing of ranks around a policy – and a massive pot of money – that is vulnerable to accusations of waste and to budget cuts.

The tone during the hearing was generally defensive, with only a few questions devoted to more conceptual issues of what regional aid should and should not try to achieve.

Among the 45 prepared questions, there were none at all about Cretu’s work for Ion Iliescu, a controversial leader of post-Communist Romania, or about her membership of the country’s socialist party, which in the process of cementing its power has clashed repeatedly with the European Commission. Nor, indeed, were there any questions taking aim at her lack of expertise, even though assessing a nominee’s knowledge of their future portfolio is one of the stated purposes of the confirmation hearings. The Commission’s services had done an impressive job at coaching the nominee.

Cretu certainly did not come across as the novitiate that she is; she appeared to be firmly in command of her portfolio, although her replies – as tends to be the case in these hearings – were on the general side. Having spent the last eight years in the European Parliament, she will not have had any trouble flattering her fellow MEPs, which she did in abundance.

She opened numerous replies by paying homage to the MEPs who were asking the questions, thanking them for their energy and dedication to the cause of regional policy. Cretu, in her opening statement and several of her replies, mounted a strong defence of regional aid as a driver for economic growth. In order to fulfill that potential, she said, it has to be tailored to the specifics of each region, and the best way to do that was by involving regional and local authorities, businesses and civil society. Aid is not charity but also imposes a moral obligation on the recipient to make the best of it, she stressed. The need for involving various segments of society in planning regional projects was a recurring theme of her replies; she also suggested that not all member states were equally committed to the partnership principle.

Another recurring theme in Cretu’s replies was the need to work within the constraints of the EU’s fiscal rules. Rather than letting herself be pulled into a philosophical debate about compatibility between the EU’s austerity policies and regional aid, she pointed out that both policies had been properly adopted by the member states and the European Parliament and she would have to work with them.

Nobody left the hearing with any doubt that Cretu would be confirmed. Her answers tended to be to the point, if general, and while her flattering of the MEPs was anything but subtle it might have won over the odd doubter. In the end, it did not matter much at all: her confirmation is the ‘grand coalition’ at work, and she would have had to produce a complete failure of a hearing in order for the outcome to be put in question.

Click here to read the live blog from the hearing – as it happened

 

Bulgaria gas transmission rules are legal, says ECJ

Commission loses case accusing Bulgaria of not implementing 2009 rules on gas networks, but several other cases involving the Bulgarian energy sector are still outstanding.

Bulgaria did not breach its obligations under European Union energy rules, according to a ruling by the EU’s highest court yesterday (5 June) which rejected accusations by the European Commission.

The European Court of Justice held that EU gas transmission rules passed in 2009 do not require Bulgaria’s state-owned gas transmission company Bulgartransgaz to ensure that its gas transmission network allowed operators to exchange gas held in another country for gas in Bulgaria – a measure that would allow foreign operators to ‘import’ gas if Bulgarian prices rose. The Commission had asked the court to fine Bulgaria for breaching EU law by prohibiting such measures.

The Commission said in reaction to the judgment: “This judgment by no means prevents member states from offering virtual reverse flows and it does not change the Commission’s position towards virtual reverse flows. They are crucial for competition and market integration.”

It added that allowing so-called “virtual reverse flow” would become mandatory under new rules that would be applicable from 1 November 2015.

The case is one skirmish in a wider fight between the Commission and Bulgaria over the Bulgarian energy sector. This interest is in part due to Bulgaria’s important role as a transit country for gas to Europe. But Bulgaria has also marked itself out as one of the EU’s strongest defenders of Russia, at a time when relations between the EU and Russia are particularly sour.

Chief among the tensions between the Commission and Bulgaria is a spiralling dispute over the south stream gas pipe, which would open a new route to transport gas across the Black Sea and through Bulgaria and Serbia reaching Austria, Hungary and Italy.

The Commission has warned the member states involved that under the EU’s third energy package Gazprom cannot both provide the gas and manage the transmission pipes. These, in turn, must be open to all suppliers. On Monday (2 June), the Commission took steps to investigate whether Bulgaria broke EU public procurement rules when tendering the contracts for the work on the gas pipeline and asked it to suspend construction works. The Commission has also recommended suspending the south stream project in its European energy security strategy, presented in late May in response to the crisis in Ukraine.

Separately, the Commission’s antitrust division has two open cases against Bulgaria’s state-owned energy company Bulgaria Energy Holdings, which owns Bulgargaz and Bulgartransgaz. One case involves Bulgaria’s electricity sector, while the second is investigating allegations that the BEH is blocking other gas suppliers from using the Bulgarian transmission network.

The complaint in the second case was filed by Overgas. Until 2010 that company, which is part-owned by Gazprom, operated as the intermediary when importing Gazprom gas into Bulgaria. Overgas was cut out in 2010 and in parallel entered the Bulgarian market as a rival supplier to BEH.

The Commission’s competition department has paid growing attention to energy markets in Eastern Europe in recent years, with cases against Romanian, Polish, Czech and Slovak energy companies, as well as Gazprom.

Edward Snowden is one of Jan Philipp Albrecht’s folk heroes. The Paris attacks didn’t change his mind, but the terrorists made his job harder.

As the lead negotiator for the European Parliament on the General Data Protection Regulation, the German Green is the driving force behind a law that will harmonize data protection rules across Europe.

The aim is to give people more power over what happens with their data, ranging from financial information to family photos, ensuring it is only processed, stored or sold with their consent. The law would also make it easier for people to switch services, like cloud photo storage, by making data more portable. Finally, companies could be fined for failure to comply or to notify authorities when breached.

The legislation is expected to be finalized by the end of December, but the tenor of the debate shifted after the Paris attacks coupled with the level-4 terror threat in Brussels. A growing number of political leaders are listening to frightened voters who are willing to sacrifice more privacy in order to feel more secure.

Not Albrecht.

“The approach on encryption cannot be a balanced one,” Albrecht, vice chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee, told his peers after the attacks. “Either you are in favor of encrypted communication or you are against.”

The former anti-nuclear activist still encrypts his own emails. He argues citizens and businesses should too in order to protect their privacy and shield themselves from unwanted surveillance.

Accusations that Snowden’s revelations helped terrorists evade detection are “ridiculous,” he said.

“Those criminals, who are trained by terrorist organizations, used protected communications already before Snowden,” Albrecht said in an interview. “Besides, he didn’t reveal any intelligence about terrorist investigations but just information about the unlawful extent of intelligence agencies activities.”

From Pershings to data

A crisis can define a political career. Data protection has turned into a mine field on the legislative landscape. Albrecht’s position is clear and seemingly unbending.

“It is now not about re-balancing security and privacy but about making security more targeted and effective. None of the mass surveillance measures have helped to identify these threats,” he said. “We have to re-focus on known radicals rather than collecting more irrelevant data about completely innocent persons.”

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Albrecht walked onto the European Parliament stage just six years ago, and at 26 was half the average age of his peers. He still wears jeans and T-shirts and answers his own emails. But has learned to navigate the political terrain and build a political profile.

“When Albrecht first arrived, he was a young Greens activist, and he has developed into a real politician, in the positive sense,” said Liberal MEP Sophie in ’t Veld, who works alongside Albrecht in the LIBE committee.

The man himself acknowledged, “At the beginning, I did more in the straight, offensive way, and I learned to not only be that way. It’s much psychology, strategy and sometimes even tactics.”

Born in Wolfenbüttel, a small town in Lower Saxony best known for the Mast-Jägermeister liquor company, Albrecht grew up in a political family. His parents took the 1-year-old baby to demonstrations against the NATO deployment of Pershing II rockets in West Germany.

Schoolmates fueled his activism. He joined the Greens at 16 and campaigned for peace during U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The troubled Asse II mine, where radioactive caesium-137, plutonium and strontium leaked, also became a protest point.

“Anti-nuclear activism and data protection are not so far from each other,” Albrecht reflected. Both raise “the question of the impact assessment when getting into new technology and the implications of technology on society.”

After graduation, he attended law school in Bremen, Berlin and Brussels before specializing in information and communications technology law in Hanover, Germany and Oslo.

In Bremen, he met Manuel Sarrazin, a German Greens federal MP, who recalled Albrecht as an “awake student, participating, reading the stuff … [but also] a party guy — sometimes a bit too much. I have seen him pogo dancing. Parties and youth organizations are a good combination.”

By 2006, Albrecht had become the federal spokesperson of the Young Greens, a position he held until 2008.

“He became very visible because he was a real expert on many issues,” said Rebecca Harms, a fellow German Greens MEP.

She suggested he run for leader of the Green party in Lower Saxony, but he had his sights on Brussels.

“For what I want to do and what I want to change, the best place to be is here in the European Parliament,” said Albrecht.

As Parliament’s rapporteur for the data protection regulation, Albrecht managed to forge a broad consensus in March 2014, despite the record 4,000 amendments filed. When the vote came, 621 members were in favor of the text he presented, 10 were against and 22 abstained.

Pendulum swings back

Albrecht concedes Snowden’s revelations of mass surveillance, just a few months earlier, helped sway many votes for stricter protections.

Post-Paris, the pendulum has swung back. And that could influence European debates on a number of laws in the pipeline, including the Passenger Name Record for travelers on international flights and the Umbrella Agreement that sets out data protection terms for transfers between EU and U.S. law enforcement.

But Albrecht stands firm: “Parliamentarians need to assure the rule of law still applies. Otherwise there would be no difference anymore between our societies and those who don’t care about these values.”

 

Some at the Commission wondered how such an important piece of legislation could land in the hands of a relative novice of a minority group, said Pauline Rouch, a former cabinet member of then-Commission Vice-President for Justice Viviane Reding. (Reding too was in charge of the Data Protection Regulation at the time, on behalf of the Commission)

“He adapted to the ecosystem, like any animal would,” Rouch added.

Albrecht said being underestimated helped him be successful. Yet, he admitted he had to adjust and soften his approach.

While Albrecht has been willing to compromise with opposing political groups, he digs in with the tech industry.

“He is not very interested in hearing something that is not of the same ideology,” said a former tech lobbyist who requested anonymity to protect his current position.

Albrecht swept aside such assertions with, “I try to really get [the lobbyist’s] minds into a different direction instead of copy-pasting what they say and leaving them in the world they are in.”

His colleagues describe him as knowledgeable, strong on substance and at ease with technical audiences.

“He has created a very strong brand: ‘human rights in the digital age.’ In politics today, you need to be specialized, you need to try to be known for something. He has observed that maxim,” said Labour MEP Claude Moraes, chair of the LIBE committee and Albrecht’s boss on paper. “He is definitely one of Parliament’s strong players.”

Albrecht seems eager to show that he’s struggling to come to terms with the fact that he is one of them.

“Politicians have a lot of weaknesses. After a certain time in politics they tend to be quite uncreative,” he said.

Max Schrems, the young Austrian who helped take down the U.S.-EU safe harbor data agreement, said, “I see him as a political citizen who holds an office in the Parliament.”

It’s unclear how long Albrecht will remain in office. “If you are young,” he said, “you should have different plans in your life.”

But the data protection regulation will influence the social, economic and legal future of Europe for years to come.

Ivo Oliveira, Hans Von Der Burchard, Quentin Ariès contributed to the reporting.

France to UK: Let’s stay cool

Finance minister Michel Sapin tells POLITICO that Paris is open to talks on EU reforms — to a point.

France’s finance minister says Paris is ready to talk with the UK about reforming the way European Union institutions work, but will draw a red line at changing the bloc’s founding treaties.

Michel Sapin told POLITICO in an interview Thursday that Paris is open to discussions with London on making Europe “less distant, less complex and less bureaucratic.”

But “that should not involve a renegotiation of the [EU’s] treaties,” Sapin said.

In what might be seen as an olive branch offered to Britain before it holds a referendum on EU membership at some point in the next two years, Sapin said France and other member states were all in agreement on a fundamental point: They want to avoid a British exit from the Union.

Sapin said he saw a calmer, less combative atmosphere prevailing around the issue now that the UK elections are over and Prime Minister David Cameron has formed his majority government.

“Confrontation would have meant taking unreasonable risks,” he said.

Sapin’s view reflects a new strategy by France and Germany to deal with — rather than fend off — London’s requests for serious EU reforms: defuse any possible drama, and treat the future negotiations as if they were a normal part of life in the 28-member Union.

In another statement that will be seen favorably in London, Sapin said that one of the major reforms France will actively support is the building of a capital markets union (CMU), a key pillar of the current European Commission’s agenda.

The initiative, which falls in the portfolio of Jonathan Hill, the European commissioner for financial stability, financial services and capital markets union, aims to boost investment by making it easier for companies to raise capital across the EU’s 28 member states.

“The CMU will be the second stage, after the [eurozone’s] banking union,” said Sapin, who was traveling Friday to Madrid and Lisbon to discuss that reform and the future of the eurozone in general.

Businesses throughout Europe will increasingly turn for their financing from banks to financial markets, Sapin said, and “a German fund needs to be able to invest safely in small or medium Spanish business.”

The future capital markets union will require both more liberalization and common regulations throughout the EU, said the French minister, adding that Hill’s blueprint provides “a strong base” on which to build.

Sapin said he didn’t see a major confrontation coming with the UK on the matter unless London asks for opt-outs from the common scheme. The capital markets union will be an EU-wide reform, whereas the banking union is limited to the eurozone.

Asked about the state of drawn-out negotiations between Greece and its eurozone partners, Sapin said he had learned to be “neither optimist nor pessimist. We deal with a given situation.”

Comparing the current mood of the financial crisis talks to what it was during the first three months of the Syriza government, Sapin said there has been significant progress “on process, on the way the talks are conducted.”

But as Greece is reaching its solvency limit in the near future, he said, talks need to accelerate, and gain in intensity.

Sapin also highlighted the “political uncertainty” around the ability of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to push a deal through his Parliament.

“We hear a lot of different things coming out of Athens, but there’s one man who must succeed, and it’s the prime minister, so we have to trust him,” Sapin said.

“Europe has already changed a lot in the past years,” Sapin said, citing as progress the EU’s agreements to curb tax evasion by multinational corporations, and pledges to bring more transparency to the tax deals struck by national governments with the big corporates they want to attract. “It must and it will keep reforming.”

The 63-year-old Sapin — a close associate of French President François Hollande, with whom he attended the elite school training the country’s top civil servants — has witnessed a lot of those changes over the years.

He served a first stint as finance minister in 1992 and 1993 under then-President François Mitterrand, and weathered the severe crises that shook the European monetary system at the time.

Hollande appointed him labor minister when he was elected president in 2012, then put him in charge of finance last year when Pierre Moscovici, the previous holder of the job, was made a European commissioner.

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Timmermans to face questions on Commission restructuring

Timmermans will face group leaders in a 4-hour hearing session on 7 October.

Though 26 of the confirmation hearings for European Commission nominees to be held over the next two weeks in the European Parliament will by committees, the 27th will be something slightly different.

Frans Timmermans, nominated as the European Commission’s first vice-president and Commission President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker’s “right-hand man”, will have an open hearing with political group leaders instead of being questioned by committees.

The hearing will take place at 2.30pm on 7 October, and is open to all MEPs. It will take place either in the largest group meeting room of the Parliament or, perhaps, in the Parliament’s plenary chamber.

This open hearing will last longer than the other hearings, probably four hours.

The special status for Timmermans’ hearing reflects the unprecedented nature of his new role. He has been nominated to be first vice-president for better regulation, inter-institutional relations, rule of law and charter of fundamental rights. He is believed to be best placed to answer questions about structural changes to the Commission.

“Some questions will be to clarify the exact competencies of the roles,” said Roberto Gualtieri, chair of the economic and monetary affairs committee. “The Parliament supports the idea of having vice-presidents in charge of horizontal subject areas but wants a clear idea of who is responsible for what.”

Click here for the full schedule of confirmation hearings

There have been concerns about Juncker’s decision to combine portfolios and move topics between departments. Commissioner nominees are unlikely to provide detailed answers on the thinking behind Juncker’s restructuring decisions. It will fall to Timmermans to address these concerns.

 

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EU and China resume investment talks

Third round of talks start on an investment treaty that could pave the way for a free-trade deal.

Negotiators from the European Commission and China are today starting a third round of talks intended to lead to the signing of an investment treaty.

The current round, which is being held in Beijing, will last three days.

The investment treaty has been flagged up by both sides as a stepping stone towards a full free-trade agreement, though the European Union has so far resisted Chinese calls to start a study on the feasibility of a free-trade deal.

No target date has been set for the conclusion of the talks and, after the first two rounds of talks, the negotiators remain in the early phases of discussions. The pace of talks will, however, indicate to both sides how far and fast they wish to develop ties, while the markets will treat the talks as a test-case of the seriousness of China’s stated intention to open up its economy substantially during its current long-term plan.

The EU’s pursuit of a stand-alone agreement with China is in itself an indication of the challenges in the relationship. This is the first time that the EU has sought an investment agreement outside the framework of a free-trade deal.

Trade relations between China and the EU have been marred in recent years by some of the biggest disputes yet in a trading relationship that has burgeoned since China began in 1978 to liberalise its economy, in particular over the sale of Chinese solar panels at below cost on the European market. That dispute was largely resolved last summer, but related clashes – over European exports of wine and polysilicon, an element used in high-quality solar panels – were settled only this spring. Issues relating to state subsidies have also been a central, recurrent problem. While some European industries enjoy large-scale subsidies, China’s extensive use of subsidies are among the reasons why China has yet to be recognised by the World Trade Organization, or by the EU, as a market economy.

The investment negotiations could also inject momentum into the development of a broader economic relationship between the EU and China. Top-level contact on economic issues has been particularly limited in the past two years, in part because of personnel changes in Beijing, ahead of the once-in-a-decade transfer of power to a new president and prime minister last November.

The investment-treaty negotiations, which were formally approved last October after two years of preparatory talks, could see China open up sectors that have previously been largely closed to European investors. Just 2% of the EU’s foreign direct investment around the world goes to China. Some sectors of the Chinese economy remain largely or fully closed to European firms. These include transport, telecoms, health and a range of services. Other obstacles for EU investors include Chinese requirements on knowledge transfers, equity, joint ventures, and administration.

The treaty, which the Commission is negotiating for EU’s 28 member states under powers that it gained in 2009 through the Lisbon treaty, would replace 26 existing bilateral investment agreements of varying age, range and quality struck between China and the EU’s member states. The centralisation of negotiating power potentially provides the Commission with greater leverage as it seeks to open up markets in China for EU investors.

The aim is to give Chinese and European companies equal access to each other’s markets, an objective that would have more immediate benefit for EU companies as the Europe’s markets are more open than China’s. The benefits for China are seen as predictability and the potential support that foreign investment could provide as China seeks to reform sectors, including services, that are dominated by state enterprises.

China’s level of investment in Europe remains low, at 1.5% of foreign investment in Europe, but it has been snapping up infrastructure, energy, utilities and telecoms assets in southern Europe and central Europe, leading to suggestions that it is pursuing geopolitical objectives through its investment. Shortly before Xi Jinping became the first Chinese president to visit the EU’s institutions on 31 March, China’s ambassador to the EU, Yang Yanyi, told an audience in Brussels that “suggestions that we want to split the EU are entirely groundless”, continuing: “We believe that our co-operation with countries in central Europe will be helpful to build up the strength of the European integration process”.