Germany assumes the EU presidency when the EU celebrates its 50th anniversary. The Rome Declaration signed 50 years ago marks the birth of EU which includes 27 members now. On March 22 People's Daily Online had an interview with Dr. Volker Stanzel, German Ambassador to China. This is the main part of the dialogue.

Germany has more neighbors than any other European country. It is also one of the initiators and active promoters of the EU integration. So is a unified Europe more important to Germany than to any other European country?

You have given the reason yourself. Because Germany is in the center of Europe and is neighbor to so many other countries, it is always in a situation where it has to balance its own interest with that of its neighbors. And after the Second World War, it found that the European integration serves that purpose best.

The Rome Declaration marks the birth of the EU 50 years ago and the Berlin Statement to be announced on March 25 is supposed to draft the future of the EU. But you know more and more European citizens cast doubts on the feasibility and capability of the integration. Even the French people who are also initiators and promoters of the integration did not give a nod. So will that effect the sentiment of German people?

Yes certainly it does. Since the treaty of Rome has been signed we have made a long, long way towards the state of integration that we have reached today. But this was a path which had never been without setbacks. And always some governments in Europe took decisions which slowed and sometimes speeded up the progress of integration. The referendum in the Netherlands and France belongs to the same process of moving forward, backward, forward again. In the end, it will also proceed very much and I think the Berlin Declaration will be part of that move towards resolving the questions of the Constitution and institutional cooperation.

Germany, together with Finland and the Netherlands, will form a so-called "battlegroup" in the first part of the year. Is this part of Europe's effort to develop the capability of independently designing and implementing military actions?

Not necessarily. Europe has always pursued its security policy as part of NATO's security policy. However, with the recent enlargement of the EU we incorporated some member countries that are not NATO member countries. So devising an efficient European security policy has become more complicated, not impossible �C we have moved forward with our own security and defense identity. But things have become more complicated and the efforts you are talking about are one example of how we try to bring the two together

Before you took office in Beijing as an ambassador you wrote and published a number of articles about China's reform and diplomacy. What sparked your interest in China at that time?

Since I was a student, I have studied East Asian affairs. Now, of course, you look more and more to those countries who are rapidly developing. And China is the best example for that. So my curiosity, I think, was naturally strong about China.

What were your opinions at that time about China-EU relations?

At that time? Maybe you refer to 15 years ago when I was here in China for the first time on an assignment. At that time for one thing, very few Chinese understood anything about the European integration. It was very far away for China. And that has changed completely.

From the perspective of Europe, what aspects of China are your concerns now?

We have, of course, our economic relationship as the basis of EU-China relations. It has advanced so fast and so far that 15 years ago nobody would have dreamed the EU to become China's largest trading partner, to give one example. So in order to retain our positive relationship we have to keep our economic relationship productive and we have to resolve issues such as market economy status. Market economy status means that we have to find ways of solving problems such as IPR, and to resolve the danger of dumping, on both sides of course. In order to achieve that we have to establish proper mechanisms. I think these are the questions that stand at the foreground of our attention in Europe.

Just now you mentioned the market economy status. But after China has finished its transition period of WTO, we have heard increasing complaints from European companies about China's market access and IPR issues. So do you think that the market economy status will be a more difficult issue because of those complaints?

It is a difficult issue now. But it is not the only issue concerning the problem that you allude to. We find that China's transition is far from over. Some parts of China are not as modern as other parts. So you have frictions within China concerning the questions of how to deal with foreign companies and imports, and so on. Presently, the German EU presidency is pursuing this campaign of "We are a Chinese company too", trying to make people also in the less modernized parts of China understand that foreign companies come to China, they invest money here and that the future is here. They are part of the Chinese economy just as a Chinese company in Germany is a German company. This understanding is part of the transition process. It still creates problems. But we still hope to resolve these problems.

Germany has the EU presidency for six months now. Germany is also the largest European trading partner of China. What do you think Germany and China can do together to resolve the problem you mention just now?

For Germany's EU presidency, we have non-Chinese issues that stand in the foreground, the Constitution, or regional problems such as Kosovo. So China is not at the top of the agenda. Fortunately, because the problems are not that big. The market economy status is one of various issues that we concern ourselves with. But nobody thinks it can be resolved within the next few months. We want to bring it forward. We continue discussions in Brussels with the Commission. But it is not at the top of the agenda. Critical, dangerous issues are at the top of the agenda. Fortunately, China is not one of them.

The EU is China's largest trading partner. China is the EU's second largest trading partner. Germany is the largest European trading partner of China. Last year the trade between Germany and China stood at 80 billion USD, while South Korea, which is smaller than Germany, had a trade value of 130 billion USD with China. What's your take on that?

You see you have a situation where countries from the same region trade more with each other than with those that are farther away. Our largest trading partners are in Europe. I think it's quite natural that a neighboring country, such as South Korea, should have more trade with China than faraway Germany.

Talks on a new China-EU cooperation framework have started during Germany's EU presidency. What progress do you expect to be made during the six months?

First of all we have to resolve some basic questions, how to intertwine political and trade questions, how to connect them and relate them to each other. I think if we resolve these basic questions then under the future presidencies of the EU, progress will be speedy.

The uneven development within the EU is part of the reason for difficulties in integration. The EU's economy is growing slowlier than the world average. Nowadays, any challenges within a region will naturally affect the whole region or even the world as a whole. How will this situation affect the EU's diplomacy, especially with regard to China?

Of course the speed of growth of advanced, industrialized countries is much slower, in relative terms, than that of newly modernizing countries. And we hope that countries which have not completely industrialized and modernized will have high growth rates in order to catch up with Europe, Japan and the United States. So we hope that the growth rates of China, India, Brazil and those of other countries continue to be much higher than our own, because in absolute terms, of course, industrialized countries' growth is still much higher than that of countries which are still modernizing, like China.

Last year, China and the EU have launched a technology year. How is that going on now?

I think it was one milestone on our path of increasing our cooperation. I saw great resonance among research institutes in Germany. I suppose, but I am not quite aware, that it is similar in other European countries. But I think we still have a long way to go to really get close to the kind of cooperation that exists between China and the United States.

China has launched a few cultural events in a number of European countries, the so-called "Cultural Years". As an ambassador, as far as I know, you always put much importance on cultural exchanges. You have already sponsored many cultural activities. What do you think is the most efficient way of promoting cultural understanding between people?

During my time as an ambassador here we reached an agreement between the two governments that Germany does not have a cultural year of Germany in China, but has three years of German presentation, not just culture, but society, economy and so on. Three years is quite a long period. I think that is quite a success. In turn, the government of the People's Republic has announced that it will organize a cultural year of China in Germany in the future after our three years are over.

When will the year of Germany begin?

It will begin with the International Book Fair in Beijing, at the end of August this year.

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe visited Europe soon after he took office as prime minister. Europe also has plans to hold a summit with Japan. Mr. Abe expressed his opposition against Europe's removal of its arms embargo on China. As an ambassador and scholar of Japanese issues, what's your opinion on that?

Of course, the Japanese government has any right to make their opinion known. And because Japan is a close ally of European countries and a member of the G8, of course we will listen to it. But as I said before, the question of lifting the arms embargo is one which has to be resolved between the EU and China, not between others.

By People's Daily Online