Brussels, 15/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - A Spanish government source has revealed that an EU complaint to the WTO against Argentinean protectionism will be lodged very shortly. The Commission denies this, but, in Geneva, WTO member countries continue to criticise the increase in non-automatic Argentinean import licences.
According to a Spanish government source quoted by the Reuters newsagency on 14 May, the EU has “decided” to file a complaint over Argentinean import restrictions. If the EU wins, this will lead to “very serious trade sanctions” for Argentina, the source told Reuters. The complaint is not directly linked to the seizure of control of YPF, the Argentinean subsidiary of Spanish oil company Repsol, but that move played a role in the EU's decision, the source said. When asked on Tuesday, Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht's department declined to comment on the rumour.
In a letter to the Argentinean Trade Minister Héctor Timerman just after the announcement of the expropriation from Repsol, De Gucht was critical of the raft of trade restrictive measures taken by Argentina since 2008, in particular the growing number of products for which import licences are required, and he warned that he was refusing to rule out any option, bilateral or multilateral, for resolving this issue.
At the end of March, the EU, alongside the United States and a dozen or so other member countries, both developed and emerging, condemned the import barriers raised by Argentina since 2008, slamming the considerable extension of its list of goods requiring import licences. At a meeting of the WTO import licences committee on 27 April, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Japan, Norway, New Zealand, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United States and the EU passed on the reports from their producers and traders that their exports to Argentina had declined or been delayed by that country's licensing processes and requirements, which some described as “protectionist”. Countering that statistics show that imports from most of the above countries continue to rise, Argentina stated that the measures it has taken are consistent with the WTO import licensing agreement and are legitimate for promoting economic growth at a time of international economic crisis. (EH/transl.rt)