Page 16 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.76, # 1, 2019, pp. 4-19

local governments should work , as sometimes occurred very successfully, even
more city-by-city and sector-by-sector, providing at the same time open, clear and
detailed information to national and local public opinion and stakeholders.
Facing the doubts on BRI investment, it would be easier to realize cooperation
between cities in China and Europe instead of a continent to continent grand
blueprint. The city-to-city cooperation could be less politically concerned on certain
issues such as MES and human rights issues. China has been trying to adopt a
“precise cooperation” logic in BRI promotion in Europe that different types of
cooperation would be conducted according to the advantage of different countries
and cities. For example, the Central European Trade and Logistics Cooperation Zone
invested by an enterprise based in city of Linyi (which is led by Shandong Province
China) in Budapest is a successful case. Considering the geographic advantage in
Europe, Budapest could benefit from becoming the logistic and commodity trading
exhibition Centre (plus a logistic park in the Csepel Port in Hungary) that the annual
import and export through the zone reached around 245 million US dollars in
2017.Moreover, Trieste could be another case embracing BRI in Europe. If city-to-
city cooperation could be successful—transparent and beneficial, further interaction
of BRI in larger scale would be promoted more easily.

It is very important that EU-China economic relations do not lose the originality of
their partnership. Burgier (2017) suggests keeping untouched two pillars: separation
between human rights issues and trade negotiations, and transfer of expertise from
the EU to China (e.g. on food safety and environmental management). Negotiating
“behind closed doors”, avoiding formal dispute settlements is a priority, in the
attempt to reach compromises, reduce costs and avoid political backlash.

The new legislation is contradictory, at least partially, and not fully satisfying from a
Chinese perspective. However, the European Commission responsibility in the
elaboration of reports in order to identify possible “market distortions” will offer a
new space of negotiation case-by-case and sector-by-sector. Better said, it offers new
space to explain Chinese conditions of production.

REFERENCES
Brugier C.M. (2017). The EU’s trade strategy towards China: lessons for an effective
turn. Asia Europe Journal, 15, 199-212.

Chang VKL., Pieke FN. (2018). Europe’s engagement with China: shifting Chinese
views of the EU and the EU-China relationship. Asia Europe Journal, 2, 1-15.

Confederation of the European Bicycle Industry (2017). Vote of the European
Parliament’s INTA committee on the New Anti-Dumping calculation methodology.

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