Brussels goes ahead with tariffs on electric cars after meeting with Beijing to resolve crisis fails

Economy.- (AMP) Brussels goes ahead with tariffs on electric cars after meeting with Beijing ended without agreement

BRUSSELS, 19 ()

The European Commission is pressing ahead with tariffs on electric battery cars imported from China to compensate for Beijing’s illegal subsidies to its producers, after a meeting in Brussels between the European Commission’s economic vice-president, Valdis Dombrovskis, and the Asian giant’s trade minister, Wang Wentao, concluded without success on Thursday, in which they sought to resolve the open crisis between the two regions.

“Both sides agreed to intensify efforts to find an effective, enforceable and WTO-compatible solution in the case of electric cars,” Dombrovskis said in a brief statement posted on social media.

The EU negotiator made it clear in his statement that the desire to reach an agreement is “without prejudice to the EU investigation and its timeframes.”

Community sources point out that during the meeting Dombrovskis defended before Wang the investigation based “strictly on facts and evidence” that has allowed Brussels to impose temporary tariffs to compensate for illegal subsidies and guarantee “fair competition” in the internal market and that all producers compete on an equal footing.

During the conversation, the EU official also demanded that Beijing close the “unjustified” investigations it has launched against EU products such as brandy, pork and dairy products in retaliation for the tax on electric cars exported by this country.

Although no date has been announced, the 27 countries will have to vote in the coming weeks on whether they support or reject making the provisional rates permanent, although if there is no qualified majority for or against, it will be the Community Executive that will make the final decision.

The imposition of provisional tariffs last July raised doubts among some EU countries, such as Germany and Sweden, which fear the consequences of a trade war with the Asian giant, but was viewed favourably by others such as Spain and France. However, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, indicated a change of position on his recent trip to China, where he asked Brussels to “reconsider” the measure.

CONTACTS WILL CONTINUE

Since last July, Brussels has applied tariffs of up to 38.1% to electric battery cars imported from China, a trade defence measure that is provisional but is expected to become permanent in the coming weeks if a sufficient qualified majority is not formed among EU countries to block it in a future vote.

The tax, which is added to the 10% that the EU already applies to vehicle imports, will be permanent unless a qualified majority of member states (15 countries totalling at least 65% of the total EU population) vote against it at a technical meeting that was due to take place next week but which, according to European sources consulted by Europa Press, is closer to 30 September.

In this context, Dombrovskis and Wang agreed to keep communication open at ministerial level and expressed readiness to evaluate new proposals from Chinese manufacturers for minimum prices to offset the controversial subsidies.

Last week, EU services confirmed that they had received a number of proposals for minimum import prices but that they had all been rejected because “none of them met the criteria” necessary to correct the damage to the European sector.