The China-EU School of Law supported the second EU-China Legal Affairs Dialogue in Brussels on 16 and 17 October 2017. Prof. Hinrich Julius, Coordinator of the China-EU School of Law at Universität Hamburg, upon invitation joined the meeting as an expert panellist. The second event built on the first Dialogue meeting that was jointly launched in Beijing by Minister Song Dahan, then Minister of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, and Vĕra Jourová, European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, in Beijing last year. The Dialogue was created by consensus at the 17th China-EU Summit in 2015.
This second meeting of the Legal Affairs Dialogue invited policy makers, non-governmental organisations and academia from the EU and China to participate. The dialogue focused on better regulation and improvement of the quality of law-making. Participants discussed the importance of transparency, involvement of stakeholders, evidence-based policy making and uniform implementation of laws; as well as the making and development of the Chinese Civil Code.
The Legal Affairs Dialogue is an important platform for EU-China cooperation. It provides an appropriate venue for the EU and China to better understand their respective legal systems and to deepen their partnership in a wide range of areas based on the shared recognition that the EU and China have important links in many sectors such as trade and investment, technology, agriculture, health and social issues, urbanisation, and environment protection.
As agreed by both sides, the third Legal Affairs Dialogue will be held in 2018 in China. It will consist of a high level segment, followed by workshops on topics related to the overall theme of the dialogue. The Legal Affairs Dialogue will also help to create specialised EU-China networks to bring continuity to the exchanges.
Opting for dialogue: Chen Fuzhi，Director-General, Department of Administrative Reconsideration, Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, and Tiina Astola, Deputy Director-General, DG Justice.
