Brussels, 06/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht is to propose to the EU Member States heavy taxes on solar panels imported from China in order to protect the European sector.
On Monday 6 May, the media were unanimous in speaking about an unprecedented trade war between the EU and China as the outcome of the dispute between Brussels and Beijing over the dumping of Chinese solar panels. De Gucht is expected to recommend that the member states impose an anti-dumping duty of nearly 50% on imports of Chinese solar panels and their components. In this way, he intends to make reparations for considerable harm, as Chinese exports of solar panels and their photovoltaic components to the EU were worth €21 billion in 2011. These same exports of Chinese solar panels are also the subject of an anti-subsidy investigation.
The commissioner will submit his proposals to his peers at the meeting of the College of Commissioners on 8 or 15 May, before putting them to the trade experts of the member states. Once approved by the member states by the end of May, this temporary anti-dumping duty may be confirmed for a period of at least five years. The six months of temporary implementation would allow Beijing to negotiate an amicable solution with Brussels, in talks on rebalancing EU-China trade.
While the European solar energy sector, which was strongly incentivised in the early 2000s by public aid and national tax incentives, is currently suffering under the effects of the debt crisis and budgetary restrictions in Europe as well as from fierce competition from low-priced Chinese products, China has seen its share of the global market rise from 40% in 2009 to 68% in 2011, bringing about overproduction in the solar panel sector at global level.
In order to combat the same problems encountered by its own solar industry, the US reacted in 2011, imposing an anti-dumping duty on Chinese solar panels of up to 250%. The reaction of China, already the subject of several investigations into its unfair competition practices in other sectors, is keenly awaited. Beijing did not hesitate to retaliate against the opening of the anti-dumping investigation into its solar panels in the autumn, with an anti-dumping investigation into European exports of polycrisytaline silicone, a material required for the production of photovoltaic cells, and a complaint to the WTO about support programmes to the solar industry in Greece and Italy. (EH/transl.fl)