On the evening of January 29, 2009, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Brussels for an official visit to the European Union (EU) headquarters.

During his two-day visit in Brussels, Wen is scheduled to hold talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. He will also meet Secretary General of the Council of the European Union and High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana. Both sides will exchange views on setting the guiding principle for China-EU relations and advancing in-depth development of China-EU ties.

Premier Wen will leave for Spain on the afternoon of January 30 after concluding the visit to the EU headquarters.

The EU headquarters is the third leg of Wen's European tour after Switzerland, where he attended the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, and Germany.

While introducing the background of Premier Wen Jiabao’s current European tour, Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Hongbo said after more than 30 years of development, China-EU relations have forged a pattern of all-round, multi-level and broad cooperation featured by mutual benefit. The two sides have become important trade partner to each other. Under the current situation, China and EU maintain close exchanges and enjoy increasing strategic consensus, rising cooperation demand and expanding common interest.

Wu said owing to reasons known to all, China-EU relations experienced some twists and turns in 2008. But China believes firmly the direction of development of China-EU relations and the desire of both sides to enhance cooperation to cope with challenges will remain unchanged. China’s policy of giving priority to the all-round China-EU strategic partnership will never change.