Strasbourg, 22/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht wants to play firmly in relation to unfair Chinese practices but wants to avoid a trade war.
The EU will not back down from protecting its industry in the face of Chinese competition it sees as unfair, but mutual self-interest will allow a damaging trade war to be avoided, De Gucht explains in an interview with the Reuters agency on Sunday 21 October.
Commercial disputes with Beijing have grown considerably with the Commission's launch at the beginning of September of an anti-dumping investigation targeting Chinese solar panels and their photovoltaic components, with the Commission intending to repair, if it proves true, a sizeable loss, as the Chinese exporters of these products reached €21 billion in 2011 (see EUROPE 10683).
Although it has delayed its decision to launch the anti-dumping and anti-subsidies investigations against the Chinese telecommunications parts manufacturers ZTE and Huawei, the Commission continues to look for proof (see EUROPE 10798). In a move aiming to harden the European capability of striking back against the unfair practices of the emerging countries which lean on the capitalism of the State for their economic development, De Gucht proposed in May that that the Commission might, as part of a more modern trade defence arsenal, lodge an own initiative complaint instead of the companies exposed to the risk of reprisals when they operate in third countries whose national businesses would see their products targeted by anti-dumping measures. An initiative against ZTE and Huawei would become the first example of this.
“We are not going to shy away from what we have to do”¸ De Gucht promises. “But we are not interested in escalating tensions. I believe that the Chinese also realise that this has to be kept within limits”, he says. For these two large scale disputes, De Gucht wants to find solutions. “You can imagine that: a mushrooming of problems between China and Europe. Both parties realise this would be a very bad thing for the whole of the world economy”, he adds.
Lastly, while a free-trade agreement between the EU and China is unlikely, even in the medium-term, the two partners are pursuing their negotiations for an agreement on investment, on which China was initially very reluctant. “It is of prime interest for us”, says De Gucht, assuring that Beijing is “much more ready than in the past to put these topics, which are rather sensitive for them, on the negotiating table”. “That doesn't mean that China is suddenly an easy partner, but they realise they have to engage.” (EH/transl.fl)