The European Union has wrapped up its two-day summit with mixed results. All 27 countries agreed to continue their support and funding of Ukraine pledging an extra $50 billion in aid and military hardware. It also agreed a new protocol for trade relations with China. However, there was stalemate on the issue of migration. 

As the heads of state and government pack their bags and head home, the EU was keen to emphasize those issues on which there was agreement here – above all, the unanimity of support for the government in Kyiv with the promise of long-term financial aid, further arms deliveries and a firm guarantee of Ukraine's security and stability. 

The EU bloc has already given Ukraine more than $78 billion in assistance and is committed to providing an additional one million artillery shells and extensive training for its armed forces – including lessons for its pilots to fly US made F-16 fighter jets.

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On the issue of future trade relations with China, there was unanimous agreement that the EU would respect and deepen its relationship with Beijing. However, there was a recognition that in the event of global supply chain disruption the EU was too reliant on supplies of key components like silicon chips. 

As the EU's biggest trading partner since 2020, when China took over from the US, the Europeans are running a huge trade deficit. Last year, the EU imported more than $400 billion more in goods from China than it exported. The bloc indicated it wanted that to start changing. 

EU leaders vowed to increase their self-reliance over time and "de-risk”the relationship with China by encouraging industry within the EU to produce more of the materials and components on which European industry depends. 

Speaking at the World Economic Forum's "summer Davos" this week, Chinese Premier Li Qiang rubbished the idea of de-risking, saying that "some in the West are hyping up the so-called phraseologies of reducing dependencies and de-risking. These two concepts are forced propositions."

The Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar insisted the EU still wanted good relations with China.

"Actually, far from being an enemy we see China as a partner, but I think one thing that the whole situation with Russia and Ukraine has taught us is that we as Europeans need to be careful about being dependent on countries that are not democratic and don't necessarily share our values. 

He went on: "We need to essentially be less naive and have our eyes open, that there are a lot of things that we are dependent on China for, and maybe that's not a good thing, that's not in our interest. You can have a very good relationship with a country, you can trade with them, you can have investment going both ways, you can have good political relations, without necessarily being dependent on them." 

Member states failed to agree on one of the other major topics for this summit – migration. Since the tragic loss of life off the Greek coast when hundreds of would be migrants are thought to have drowned when their boat sank, the EU had hailed as a breakthrough a plan to allocate a quota of migrants to each EU country. 

Poland told the other member states in a meeting lasting into the early hours of the morning that while it was hosting more than a million Ukrainian refugees, it wouldn't accept any more. 

So this has been a mixed bag for the EU in terms of agreement. Undaunted, the Commission said it would return to those proposals which have failed to be adopted in particular the migrant issue which analysts say is threatening instability in some parts of Europe with another 50,000 migrants arriving from north Africa in the first half of this year. 

As they head home, those EU countries which are also part of western military alliance NATO will be busily preparing for that summit in Vilnius. There, all 31 member states will offer long term security guarantees for Ukraine and plot a pathway to NATO membership once the fighting has stopped.

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