Brussels, 08/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - In addition to an anti-dumping investigation that had already been launched against Chinese solar panels, these panels are now also being targeted in an anti-subsidies investigation.
In response to a complaint made on 26 September by an association of European solar panel producers, EU Pro Sun (see EUROPE 10697), the European Commission launched an anti-subsidies investigation on Thursday 8 November. This targets Chinese exports of solar panels and their essential component parts (batteries and solar wafers). EU Pro Sun represents more than 20 companies and is responsible for more than 25% of European production, the critical mass required for launching an investigation. EU ProSun has provided enough evidence to demonstrate the existence of subsidies granted by the Chinese authorities and a demonstration of this as causing subsequent damage to EU industry, as well as a possible cause between imports receiving subsidies and the damage inflicted on EU industry, explained the European Commission in a press release.
The anti-subsidies investigation will last a total of 13 months. The legal trade defence arsenal also includes the possibility of setting up within a nine-month timeframe, temporary compensatory duties for a period of four months if there are enough elements that initially suggest that unfair subsidies have been granted. Before deciding on the adoption of definitive duties, the EU will apply the criteria of the European general interest and the Commission will carry out a far reaching examination into whether the cost of definitive measures to the benefit of the plaintiffs would incur a higher price to the European economy overall. On this basis, it could then propose that the Council to closes procedures without introducing measures or definitive compensatory duties for five years. The Council will have to make a decision on possible definitive measures in the following 13 months after the investigation, i.e. by 5 December 2013.
This new complaint comes two months after the launch two months ago by the European Commission at the beginning of September of an anti-dumping investigation targeting the same solar panels imported from China (see EUROPE 10683). The Commission is therefore responding to the most significant anti-dumping complaint ever submitted - Chinese exports of photovoltaic technology worth €21 billion in 2011. It also involves the biggest anti-subsidies complaint ever launched by the EU.
At the beginning of November, China provided a two pronged counter-attack to the anti-dumping investigation targeting the exports of solar technology in the EU, by way of an anti-dumping investigation against European exports of polycrystalline silicon, material used in the manufacture of photovoltaic cells, in addition to a complaint at the WTO against feed-in-tariff programmes in Greece and Italy (see EUROPE 10724). (EH/transl.fl)