Via Red Star News, a bit of analysis that - if true - leaves me feeling a little warmer towards Europe:

Yesterday saw an interesting broadcast on arte about EU’s arms politics. Guillaume DASQUIE, expert on geopolitics and member of the IRIS ( INSTITUT DE RELATIONS
INTERNATIONALES ET STRATEGIQUES) had an enlightening comment on the EU arms embargo towards China. He said that the proposition of some EU members like France and Germany to lift the embargo has to do with European and American military industrie’s competion. The USA closed it’s market (the biggest and only one where you can realy make profits) to arms from the EU almost entierly. So now the proposition to lift the arms embargo was a hint to the US: If you don’t open your market again and don’t stop to preassure European governments to buy your arms we will find somebody else to do buisness with.
I think this is called Realpolitik.