Vera Jourova

All these visits and meetings will feed into the 18th EU-China Summit in July which will be attended by President of the European Council Donald Tusk and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker as well as High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini, Vice-President of the Commission Jyrki Katainen and Trade Commissioner Malmström.

The EU-China Strategic Agenda 2020 remains the common framework for our cooperation, covering a range of areas from foreign and security policy, trade and investment, to people-to-people relations. At the last Summit meeting we started to develop new areas for cooperation from connectivity, investment, innovation and ICT to the already mentioned legal affairs dialogue and stronger people to people contacts.

This is the agenda for the next phase in our growing relationship.

As global actors, the EU and China will more closely cooperate on foreign and security policy in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and on wider issues of global governance from development to climate change. This will also be important when we explore synergies between the OBOR initiative and the EU's own infrastructure plan. A safe and secure environment is a prerequisite for greater connectivity between the EU and China across the Eurasian continent.

Trade and investment remain the core of our relationship. Our economies are going through profound transformations. A Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, which should deliver wide market access as well as state-of-the-art investor protection for both sides, will be an important foundation for what may be called a new era of our economic relations in which we will need to ensure a level playing field and reciprocity.

I trust that my visit as well as the ones by my colleagues in the weeks to come, and especially the EU-China Summit, will pave the way for further developing this new era of mutually beneficial relations.

The author is European Union Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality