Brussels, 18/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht will address the Chinese solar panels issue with Chinese authorities on the sidelines of his visit to Beijing for an EU-China economic dialogue session.
Scheduled in Beijing on 27 June, the 2013 session of the joint EU-China committee - the annual ministerial-level dialogue set up after the 1985 cooperation agreement on the economy and trade - will give the European Commission and Chinese government the opportunity to assess developments in bilateral trade and investment, and to exchange views on the multilateral negotiations and plurilateral initiatives on trade.
Although not officially on the joint committee's agenda, the solar panels dispute will be addressed on the sidelines of the meeting - a meeting which is to be co-chaired by De Gucht and China's Minister for Trade Gao Hucheng. “Confidential technical-level discussions have begun with a team of Chinese experts in Brussels since the start of the week in a bid to find a negotiated settlement”, said De Gucht's spokersperson, John Clancy, on Tuesday 18 June. “The EU's ambition remains to find an amicable solution as soon as possible but (…) discussions have only just begun and therefore we are still at a very early stage in the negotiation process”, he went on.
On 6 June, the EU started imposing provisional anti-dumping duties on imports of Chinese solar panels - for a period of six months (see EUROPE 10859). As part of a two-stage phased response - so as to protect the European industry urgently and encourage Beijing to negotiate - these duties are initially 11.8%. Then on 6 August, the average tariff will be 47.6% and the duties - which will hit Chinese companies targeted by the EU investigation initiated in September - will range from 37.2% to 67.9% depending on whether the companies have cooperated in the investigation or not.
The Commission's decision to impose heavy duties on Chinese solar panels and to carry out an investigation (without prior complaint from the European industry) into the practices of unfair trade from which the Chinese telecoms equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE are benefitting, has led to the start of a trade war with China.
Reacting to the Commission's announcements in May, China announced several anti-dumping procedures against the EU - including on wine (see EUROPE 10860). The Commission took action against China again last week by initiating a WTO procedure - alongside Japan - against Beijing's abusive use of anti-dumping duties on exports of seamless stainless steel tubes (see EUROPE 10867 and 10866). (EH/transl.fl)