Editor's note: As the 24th China-EU Summit convenes on December 7, CGTN caught up with Gladden Pappin, president of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, to gain insights into the EU-China relations and its economic significance from a Hungarian perspective. The views expressed in the video are Pappin's own and not necessarily those of CGTN.

CGTN: How do you think Europe should balance its relationship with major powers like China and the U.S. while maintaining its own strategic interests and independence?

Gladden Pappin: A better sense of European strategic autonomy would enable it to have those different relationships. The trade relationship between China and Europe isn't going away and it can't go away. So, we have to reframe the debate and realize that European strategic interests include being able to pursue more of its own foreign policy that depends upon a lot of factors and a real change in mentality and spending and economic and military development.

But the relationship with China is one that already exists. It's already existed, and it can't go away. So, the states who are benefiting from it, we hope, will be more vocal about that.

Sometimes Hungary is the one that speaks up most clearly. But I know that behind the scenes, other people are beginning to share the same opinion. And so, we have to hope that cooler heads prevail.

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