Brussels, 27/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - The announcement of European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht at the Competitiveness Council on Monday 26 May of his intention to table four draft guidelines on trade defence - to be adopted by the European Commission before the summer break - has roused anger from France's Minister for the Economy Arnaud Montebourg. Montebourg has called for De Gucht to “suspend any new initiative on trade while waiting for the new European Parliament to be set up”.
The guidelines aim to codify or clarify the Commission's current practice as regards: (1) the choice of an analogue country in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases; (2) the calculation of the injury margin; (3) the application of the EU interest test; (4) the duration and expiry of measures. The objective is to improve the transparency of trade defence proceedings for the benefit of all stakeholders, the Commission says in a press release.
Led by France, several member states from the South - such as Spain and Italy - have said that the adoption of such guidelines would weaken the protection of European industry in the fight against unfair practices from third countries and companies. “Mr De Gucht planned to adopt an instrument that does very little to protect European businesses against unfair dumping from countries outside the EU - without consulting either the Council or the new European Parliament that has just been voted in”, said Montebourg, in a press release published after the Council meeting. Montebourg spoke of “France's very firm opposition” to this proposal and welcomed “quasi-unanimous support” from his colleagues at the Council - particularly from the British, German, Spanish, Italian and Polish ministers (but not the Swedish minister), according to a press release (our translation).
Through his spokesperson John Clancy, De Gucht responded strongly to these statements. “Over the past four years, the European Commission has adopted a very firm stance against unfair competition. We withstood pressure from China in the solar panel case despite very little support in the Council and have defended European wine exports (mostly from France, Spain and Italy) against trade defence cases launched against them. To state that codifying Commission practice would weaken EU industry is simply ignoring the Commission's strong record”, Clancy stated in a press release published late on Monday afternoon. The Commission also denied the allegation that the guidelines would be adopted without consultation of the Council or the European Parliament, and was “surprised” that Montebourg “is not aware that such consultation has taken place” (over a year ago).
Some member states - such as Germany, the UK, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary - would prefer the guidelines to be adopted as a package together with the revised basic regulation. De Gucht stated that he had presented the draft legislative proposal together with the draft guidelines in April 2013 - but had always insisted on the fact that joint presentation does not mean joint adoption. Rather, the legislation and the guidelines follow different procedural paths, the Commission press release states.
“The Council was unable to come to a position on the legislative proposal which has been on its table for over a year. This prevented even the start of a trilogue with the outgoing European Parliament. Each institution should shoulder its own responsibilities. If the Council had constructively engaged on the Commission's legislative proposal then the revised legislation and the guidelines could have been adopted at the same time. Unfortunately, this did not happen, so the Commission will now exercise its institutional prerogatives”, said Clancy.
Lastly, responding to Montebourg's call for De Gucht to suspend any trade initiative while waiting for the new European Parliament to be set up, Clancy recalls that “the European Commission has the constitutional task to carry out trade policy on behalf of the European Union for the benefit of European citizens”. “Of course, we will continue to investigate trade defence cases and take appropriate measures to defend EU industry against unfair trade. Asking to suspend our trade action now blatantly disregards the role of the Commission which has been invested by the previous Parliament until the end of October”, he concluded. (EH)