The EU and China have decided to cancel their upcoming summit in Beijing because of the coronavirus epidemic, a spokeswoman for the bloc said on Wednesday.
The heads of the EU's main institutions along with the bloc's diplomatic chief had been due to travel to China - where the pandemic began - later this month to lay the groundwork for a second summit with all 27 European leaders in Germany in September.
But the Beijing meeting has been postponed as governments battle with the catastrophic fallout of COVID-19. "The EU and China have decided jointly that the EU-China summit will not take place for the moment to allow both sides to concentrate on their response to the COVID-19 pandemic," EU spokeswoman Virginie Battu-Henriksson told AFP.