Brussels, 22/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament wants the anti-dumping arsenal to take environmental, social and development aspects into account more, and to be of greater help to SMEs.
On 21 January, the Parliament's international trade committee adopted its proposals - by 24 votes in favour and 6 against - on the draft adaptation of the EU's trade defence instruments, which was tabled by the European Commission in April 2013 (see EUROPE 10824). These proposals will be put to the vote at the plenary at the beginning of February, so as to give a mandate to the Parliament to negotiate with the Council - the objective being to adopt the new rules at first reading before the end of the current legislature.
“We have a proposal for an ambitious reform of trade defence instruments in the EU. We broadly agreed to improve it in order to add more transparency, accountability and speed, and also respond to concerns of SMEs who say it's currently extremely expensive and complicated to take part in anti-dumping investigations. Where we remained split, and what has now to be clarified by plenary vote, is the underlying principle in calculating the levels of anti-dumping duties”, said rapporteur Christofer Fjellner (EPP, Sweden).
The culmination of its proposals, the international trade committee advocates a change in the rules on trade defence so as to impose stricter duties on dumped or subsidised imported goods if the exporting country “does not have a sufficient level of social and environmental standards” on the basis of international conventions on these standards. At the same time, the EU should apply more moderate duties by using a lesser duty rule when the subsidised imports come from a least developed country that wants to pursue its development goals.
The international trade committee also wants the revised trade defence arsenal to be of greater help to SMEs, which find it difficult to access anti-dumping investigations due to the complexity and costs of such investigations. In the MEPs' view, an SME help desk could resolve the issue - by helping SMEs file a complaint, achieve the necessary thresholds for investigations to be launched, and present evidence of dumping and damage caused by unfair imports.
Lastly, the MEPs advocate responding faster to unfair trade practices. In their amendments, MEPs from the international trade committee suggest that anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations should be limited to nine months (as compared with 15 months in the initial proposal) and that provisional anti-dumping duties should be imposed no later than six months after the investigation has been launched (as compared with nine months in the initial proposal). (EH/transl.fl)