The comments come ahead of a special meeting of EU commissioners on Friday focused on how the 27-nation group should approach China to level the playing field.

China's booming exports have resulted in large trade surpluses with many of Europe's top economies, putting political pressure on the continent's leaders to protect local industries.

Stephane Sejourne told the FT the EU would step up its use of import quotas and tariffs on China to protect certain sectors -- including chemicals, metals and clean technology -- against unfair competition.

"Our objective is not to break with China but to have a real rebalancing and real measures that allow us to do it," Sejourne said, according to the newspaper.