Brussels, 28/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - This new investigation comes in addition to the two investigations already being carried out into Chinese solar panels and components - one anti-dumping investigation and one anti-subsidy investigation.
Based on a complaint filed on 15 January by the association EU ProSun Glass, the European Commission opened, on Thursday 28 February, an anti-dumping investigation into imports of solar glass from China.
The Commission found that the complainant brought sufficient elements showing: 1) possible price dumping by the exporting producers on the EU markets; 2) injury suffered by the Union industry (cumulated production of EU ProSun Glass largely exceeds the threshold of 25% of EU production required by the legislation); and 3) a possible causal link between the dumped imports and the injury suffered by the Union industry.
Solar glass is a special glass used mainly, but not exclusively, for the production of solar panels, but also for many solar energy products. The investigation could take up to 15 months, although under trade defence rules the EU could impose provisional anti-dumping duties within nine months if it considers these necessary. The Council is legally obliged to take a final decision on the imposition of any definitive measures within 15 months of the investigation being started. In the present case, that means before 28 May 2014.
Almost 90% of solar glass imported into Europe already comes from China, threatening employment and factories in Europe through the “destructive dumping practised”, stated EU ProSun, a coalition of solar equipment manufacturers quite separate from EU ProSun Glass, early February. The European solar glass manufacturers' association, EU ProSun, is behind two Commission investigations into unfair competition from solar panel imports and their photovoltaic parts from China - an anti-dumping investigation launched in September 2012 (see EUROPE 10683), and an anti-subsidies investigation in November the same year (see EUROPE 10726). EU ProSun Glass and EU ProSun “are separate initiatives with different corporate supporters, unified by a common goal to restore fair competition with Chinese producers on the EU market”, EU ProSun said early this month.
The Commission gives its assurance that this new investigation has “no direct link with the probe related to the imports of solar panels launched by the European Commission last September”. It adds in its press release: “It is a stand-alone investigation concerning a clearly distinct product. The EU solar glass market is valued at less than €200 million”. This figure is well below the €21 billion in exports of Chinese solar panels and their components to the EU in 2011, incriminated in the September complaint. The Commission also states it is aware of rumours about a possible anti-subsidy complaint against Chinese solar glass but says that, to date, it has received no complaint of that kind.
Last week, representatives of the industry other than the two above-mentioned associations, which met under the banner of the Alliance for Affordable Solar Energy (AFASE), warned against the establishment of anti-dumping duties against solar panels and their components from China, underlining that this could bring about massive job losses for the EU and injure the European branch of the industry as a whole. The AFASE bases its argument on a study carried out by the Swiss economic Institute Prognos (see EUROPE 10790).
Early November, China retaliated on two occasions to the anti-dumping investigation against solar panel imports. One measure involved an anti-dumping investigation targeting European exports of silicium polycrystalline, the material needed to manufacture photovoltaic cells, and another measure involved a complaint at the WTO against feed-in-tariff programmes in Greece and Italy (see EUROPE 10724). (EH/transl.jl)