German Chancellor Friedrich Merz speaks at the European Business Summit in Belgium on February 11. Photo: Screenshot from a video of the summit on Youtube

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz cited China's speed and efficiency in renewable energy construction to urge EU to deal with overregulation when speaking at European Industry Summit in Belgium on Wednesday, which a Chinese expert sees as a sign that some European countries have begun to seriously reassess China and increasingly view China as a reference that they can learn something from.

At the summit, Merz delivered an around 16-minute speech in English, outlining urgent reforms to boost EU competitiveness. He also called for cutting red tape, strengthening the single market, and pursuing aggressive free trade policies, according to DRM News, a YouTube-based global news channel.

Merz said that EU's growth gap with the US is widening, and China is catching up. He added that over the past 20 years, China's economy had grown by around 8 percent annually, compared with 2 percent in the US and just 1 percent on average in the EU. "We must close this gap," he said, according to a video of Merz's full speech at the summit released by the Reuters Youtube channel. 

Noting that China can build the world's largest solar farms within months, Merz noted that in the EU it can take years just for a project to get approved. 

Based on this comparison, Merz said: "Over-regulation. In this European Union, in our European continent, hampers our economic growth. Therefore, I proposed to implement a fundamental principle in most permitting processes: any project that is not reviewed within a few weeks or months will be regarded approved automatically."

He also warned that Europe risks falling permanently behind if it fails to improve its competitiveness. "If we are lagging behind longer than we did in the past with our growth rate, with our innovation capacities, with our labor markets, we will lose the battle, and we will never catch up again, because the world is changing so fundamentally," he said, according to the video. 

Merz was not the only European leader to put forward proposals at the summit.

The European Union must simplify its regulations to make the bloc more competitive against the likes of the US and China, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, per Reuters. 

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, said at the summit that "we could defend and make Europe an independent power, not being a single market, but an economic power," according to a video released by the DWS News. 

European politicians' remarks at the summit once again reflect a growing sense of urgency, especially over Europe's declining global market share across industries. For example, Merz's comments show a mindset increasingly focused on learning from China and drawing lessons from its experience, Feng Zhongping, director of the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Many European leaders have mentioned China's efficiency and its role in the global economy, showing that some European countries have begun to seriously reassess China and increasingly view it as a reference. This also indirectly highlights China's international influence in areas such as infrastructure development and artificial intelligence, Feng said.

According to Germany's media Tagesspiegel, Merz plans to visit Beijing in the first three months of the new year. A separate 2025 report by Handelsblatt on Merz's planned China visit noted that economic ties between the two countries remain close, particularly Germany's automotive industry's reliance on China, the world's largest market.

While, it is also worth noting that Macron contrasted Europe's position with that of China and the US. "It is absolutely necessary to accelerate in terms of investment on strategic technologies… we are at a beginning of a big revolution where both China and the US privately and publicly are investing much more that we are doing " he said. Macron also mentioned so-called protectionism in China in his speech, according to the video of Macron's speech released by the DWS News.

Amid new geopolitical shifts, European politicians' views on China have become more complex. 

Feng noted that trade protectionist sentiment still persists in Europe, especially as some view recent US moves targeting the EU as a betrayal. While some European politicians remain cautious, other European countries are increasingly viewing China as a reference that they can learn something from.