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Led by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, leading European Union officials, including Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, whose country holds the rotating EU Presidency, descended on China and Japan for trade and climate change talks, and came away with some prospects for business.

The EU-China high-level economic and trade mechanism announced by Barroso and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao will give EU entrepreneurs setting up in China a more level playing field on which to do business. Designed to deal with trade imbalances between China and the EU and problems faced by EU firms in China, the mechanism will cover matters like intellectual property rights, investment and fair market access.

Europe’s trade deficit with China is growing at around 17 million Euro an hour and although imports from China have soared, EU exports to Asia have increased by only 10 percent over the last decade. This deficit reflects the difficulties EU businesses encounter in gaining access to the Chinese market, EU officials said.

The trade mechanism “should deliver concrete results in order to demonstrate to the European and Chinese people that cooperation and partnership work effectively for them,” Barroso explained. During meetings with the Chinese prime minister and President Hu Jintao, Barroso said he also touched on human rights and recent events in Tibet. In response, the Chinese authorities made public their readiness to open a dialogue with the Dalai Lama and his representatives.

“I have explained to premier Wen our position regarding the need for full respect of human rights,” said Barroso, adding that human rights are universal in nature and policies do not target any one country in particular. When Barroso returned to Brussels, however, he would not take questions from reporters on what had been discussed about human rights with the Chinese leaders.

Barroso also welcomed China’s willingness to include its domestic emissions reduction policy in an international agreement on climate change. The inclusion will depend on a commitment to 2020 reduction targets by developed countries and on effective technology transfer. Before visiting Beijing, Barroso, alongside the Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Jansa, attended the Japan- EU summit – where climate change also figured on the agenda.

Meeting in Tokyo, the ministers called for “highly ambitious and binding” global targets to fight climate change, providing the groundwork for a real breakthrough at the G8 summit in July.

Barroso was trying to balance concerns over Tibet with the need for EU business to keep getting a bigger share of the huge and growing Chinese market. He stressed that China’s agreement to talk with the Dalai Lama was a breakthrough for human rights. His talks coincided with a pledge by China to hold talks with a representative of the Dalai Lama, in what would be the first known “We have always advocated the need for dialogue because we feel this is the best way to achieve sustainable, acceptable solutions for the Tibet issue.” He said the decision would also help “create a better understanding between China and Europe.”

The EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, one of nine commissioners in Barroso’s delegation, suggested the Chinese decision was good news for the Olympics, which will begin in Beijing in little more than three months. “We want dialogue, not boycott. We all want the Olympics to be a success, and reaching out in this way will help,” Mandelson told journalists.

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