Part Ⅱ Highlights and Significance of China-CEEC Cooperation

Located in the central and eastern parts of Europe, CEECs cover an area of 1.38 million square kilometers^[1]. The earliest CEEC members of China-CEEC Cooperation format are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. Greece became the 17^th CEEC member in 2019. 12 out of the 17 CEECs are EU member states, while Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro are candidate countries and Bosnia and Herzegovina signed the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, a precondition for EU candidacy status. Since China-CEEC Cooperation format was in place, cooperation has been carried out in a wide range of areas at multiple levels and has contributed to regional cooperation and China-EU relations.

In terms of regional cooperation, China-CEEC Cooperation has developed into a new cross-regional cooperation platform with characteristics of its own and represents a fresh attempt in the efforts to build a new type of international relations.

Seen at the China-EU level, as an important part of China-EU relations, China-CEEC Cooperation has made positive progress in promoting China-EU economic and trade ties, investment cooperation, infrastructural connectivity and three-party cooperation, and has offered new opportunities for China-EU relations.

---

[1] calculated based on the statistics of Chinese embassies in the CEECs.