Germany's Scholz Won't Attend Xi Meeting w/Macron & VdL

(MNI) London - A German gov't spox has said that Chancellor Olaf Scholz has turned down an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron to join he and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday 6 May. Spox says Scholz will maintain his current schedule of visiting Lithuania and Latvia. The invite comes after Scholz, Macron and their wives attended a private dinner in Paris where the two leaders were seen as keen to come to some form of agreement on a joint stance with regards to China.

• Politico reports "Scholz’s visit to China last month prompted criticism that he failed to raise the threat of Beijing-subsidized goods for the European economy, and skipped over China’s provision of dual-use goods to Russia for its war against Ukraine."
• A former EEAS official told Politico, “I think it’s going to be a mismatch of expectations [between Paris and Beijing]. The Chinese are going to France to try to see how they can undermine the European intent to move forward with the [electric vehicles] investigations, [but] for France it is going to come second, after the war in Ukraine.”
• Despite the apparend bonhomie, Franco-German relations remain strained not only on major geopolitical and trade issues such as EU-China relations, but also on internal EU matters. German reluctance to consider the Union issuing 'defense eurobonds' to fund European security, or France's anger at Germany's percieved attempts to hit the competitiveness of French nuclear power continue to hamper EU policy making.