Brussels, 29/02/2016 (Agence Europe) -In its conclusions published at the end of the Competitiveness Council, the Presidency of the Council of the EU called on the Commission and member states to do all they could to reduce the anti-dumping investigations by two months, in an effort to provide more efficient protection of the industrial sectors, particularly European steel.
Currently, the anti-dumping investigations carried out by the Commission take an average of nine months, as opposed to two months in the US, according to an explanation by the French Minister for the Economy, who said he wanted the deadlines on both sides of the Atlantic to be as similar as possible (see EUROPE 11490). The action proposed today by the Council would reduce the deadlines to seven months at best and are far from the goal sought by the French and, at a more global level, that of the eleven signatories to the joint letter demanding protection for the steel sector (see EUROPE 11485). The Italian Vice Minister, Teresa Bellanova, therefore said at the end of these debates that this was a rather unambitious deadline and called for “extraordinary” collective efforts to be made to protect the sector.
The Commissioner for the Internal Market and Industry, Elzbieta Bienkowska, said that a reduction in the deadlines was obviously desirable but should not be done to the disadvantage of investigation quality. She also pointed out during the press conference that her work also depended on the cooperation of the member states and the information they provided to the European Commission.
In its conclusions, the Presidency also called on the Commission to explore opportunities for extending the investigations to subsidies granted to third countries and work hand-in-hand with the industrial sector to map out illegal subsidies granted to third countries. In a reference to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), it also called on the more efficient industries in the sector is threatened by carbon leakage to not be subject to carbon surcharges. The COP 21 agreement should not be implemented to the disadvantage of industrial competitiveness either. The areas of action announced by the Presidency also include the goal of simplifying European funding, in an effort to ensure a transition from big industrial energy consumers towards lower carbon consumption.
The Commission and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will be organising a symposium on high energy consuming industries next April.
The European institutions explained to EUROPE that the Council has not adopted conclusions because the diplomatic services have not had enough time to examine the conclusions from the high-level conference held on 15 February. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)