Good morning. Mared Gwyn and Angela Skujins with you again this Thursday morning. Today: the EU’s trade chief holds crunch talks in Beijing, Maricarmen’s death sends shockwaves in Spain, and student protests persist in France.
Touchdown in Beijing: EU Trade Chief Maroš Šefčovič landed in China yesterday with a crucial task in hand: secure commitments from the Chinese to rebalance the trading relationship. The stakes couldn’t be higher, my colleague Peggy Corlin writes in this morning. The EU faces a record €1 billion-a-day trade deficit with Beijing, with low-cost Chinese imports threatening entire sectors of EU industry.
Curbing Chinese imports: Brussels is pushing for product quotas that could curb Chinese imports into the EU, but Beijing has already rejected so-called “voluntary export restrictions” on EVs. The European Commission must also find a way to rebalance trade while securing EU businesses’ access to rare earth imports.
Beijing holds a monopoly on the production and processing of rare earths, essential for green tech, defence and the car industry. This gives China leverage in the negotiations, Peggy explains. Beijing is not afraid of using export controls to show its dominance, as it did during a trade war with the US in 2025.
Pressure on: Šefčovič is under pressure as he must bring back concrete results from the talks with China to EU leaders, who gather in Brussels next week. Each EU country now records a trade deficit with China. Peggy has more on what’s at stake.
UK’s Made in Europe plea: Before heading off for China, Šefčovič held talks with the UK Minister for European Relations, Hamish Falconer, in Strasbourg yesterday. Speaking to Euronews, Falconer warned Europe risks weakening its industries if the UK is shut off from European supply chains as a result of the EU’s "Made in Europe" policy.
Let us in: The EU wants to shield its domestic industries from unfair foreign competition by introducing a preference for European manufacturers in public contracts. But Prime Minister Andy Burnham – who has opened the door to the UK’s re-entry into the EU – is pushing hard for UK industries to be considered European as part of the scheme.
“I think it is vital that we don't do things to make European industry weaker,” Falconer said. “It would not be in either of our interests to see new barriers arising in our economic relations.” Watch.
Maricarmen, martyr?: Meanwhile in Spain, Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction from her home triggered major protests and prompted Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call a snap election, died yesterday in hospital.
The news has rattled Spain to the core. A sense of anger and indignation could be felt among the demonstrators camping on Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol, where candles were lit in her memory, my colleagues in Madrid report.
Maricarmen, who used a wheelchair, was carried on a stretcher as she was evicted from her home of seven decades in late September. The real estate company that had evicted her in the hopes of renting the property at a much higher price eventually caved in under immense public pressure and agreed to let her return to the apartment once released from hospital.
“Although a historic agreement was reached that would have allowed her to return home, this solution came too late,” the Madrid Tenants' Union said in a statement on Wednesday. “It was an entirely avoidable situation following a harrowing ordeal.”
Political earthquake: The news will also have ripple effects in Spain’s politics, and could significantly change the stakes ahead of the November 29 ballot. Sánchez has taken a major political gamble in calling the elections while on the back foot, hoping to put the housing crisis back at the centre of the debate in order to mobilise left-wing voters and pave the way for his re-election. More from our Madrid bureau.
The Rubio crossroad: From the base of the Acropolis in Athens — a city famed for birthing democracy, drama and the Olympics — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned European and Western allies of the need to return to their civilisational roots.
“It has become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritising the ‘global community’ over one’s own people,” Rubio said, speaking against the backdrop of the Acropolis. “And I think here, too, we have much to learn from the men of ancient Greece because they knew that there was nothing selfish or wrong about fighting to defend its interests above all else.”
Not a totally warm welcome: Roughly 1,500 protesters in the Greek capital demonstrated against Rubio’s Greek sojourn, which is the second of a three-leg tour starting in Iceland and ending in Portugal. The visit also came hot on the heels of a political controversy, with allegations of misconduct levelled at the US Ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Senior US lawmakers allege that the diplomat — also Donald Trump Jr.’s former fiancée — suggested Washington could bring down foreign governments, allegedly stating: “We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here.”
Round the bloc tour: Meanwhile, the EU’s justice chief Michael McGrath is today expected to hold talks with Prime Minister Edi Rama during a visit to Albania, a leading EU aspirant country. His message: “There is still important work to do.”
“The momentum must be maintained through further reforms and effective implementation across all open chapters,” McGrath said in a written statement provided to Euronews, adding that he will “stress the importance of safeguarding judicial independence and anti-corruption structures, and ensuring the effective implementation of rule-of-law reforms”.
“Albania needs strong checks and balances,” he said. Tirana is considered a frontrunner in the queue of nations bidding to join the EU, but has often faced hurdles when it comes to implementing rule of law reforms, one of the key requisites for EU membership.
The EU is now proposing new institutional “safeguards” to prevent any new members from backsliding on the bloc’s core values, which could strip new member states of voting rights for up to 15 years after they join. Luca Bertuzzi explains why candidate countries fear the move could create second-class EU members.
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