European Union lawmakers will vote to formally suspend an investment deal with China in response to sanctions against members of the bloc, adding to rising tensions between Brussels and Beijing.

The move to freeze the “Comprehensive Investment Agreement” is expected to be approved today.

It will urge China to lift sanctions before any progress can be made on the deal, which took seven years to negotiate, and push the bloc to better co-operate with the United States, Politco reported.

The agreement is balanced and beneficial for both sides, who should work towards ratifying it as soon as possible, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

China should impose sanctions on European individuals and institutions to protect its interests, Zhao said, adding that “we hope the European side learns a lesson from this situation.”

Concerns over ratification of the investment agreement arose in March when China responded to the US, UK and EU over sanctions over allegations of human rights abuses in the western Xinjiang region.

Beijing said at the time that it would punish 10 individuals and four entities in the EU, adding that the measures “harm China’s sovereignty and interests”.

Joerg Wuttke, head of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said negotiations on the EU-China Comprehensive Investment Agreement had lasted seven years. Unfortunately, it may take another seven years for it to be ratified.

China has been criticized by Western governments for its very bad treatment of Muslim Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang. A UN panel of experts during 2019 said that about 1 million people were sent to internment facilities, part of a policy group that the US has described as genocide.

China has denied the allegations, saying it is investigating a terrorism case that reached its peak around 2014 when knife attackers killed and injured dozens of people at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming.

The incident shocked the country, prompting state media to compare it to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Beijing says its activities in Xinjiang are aimed at building infrastructure and providing economic and educational opportunities.

The move by EU lawmakers comes shortly before President Joe Biden attends a US-EU summit in Brussels in June. Beijing’s ties with Europe have deteriorated recently, with Italy blocking planned acquisitions by Chinese firms and France’s new Minister for European Affairs saying his country will not tolerate threats from China. China-EU ties now seem fixed as “a dead end” because it is politically impossible for either side to lift its sanctions, an academic from a Chinese government-affiliated think tank told Bloomberg last month.