The European Union may not make a decision on whether to lift its arms embargo on China by June, but that will be of little concern to China, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in a newspaper interview. "That is not an issue for a country like China. Time does not play such a great role in the middle kingdom as it does here. It makes no difference whether the decision is taken today or tomorrow," Solana told Handelsblatt newspaper. "I would therefore not like to assert whether the decision will come in June or only later," he said according to the German text of the interview which was released on Friday. EU members agreed in December to aim to lift the ban by June, but such a move requires unanimous agreement and some have grown reluctant after Beijing's adoption last month of a new hard-line law against independence for Taiwan. EU foreign ministers will discuss China policy in Luxembourg on Friday amid signs a European consensus has fallen apart. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said in a speech to Germany's parliament on Thursday that the EU would not lift its embargo without concrete steps from Beijing. The European Parliament also urged the bloc on Thursday not to drop the embargo, which was imposed in the aftermath of China's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. --more 1243 Local Time 0943 GMT
