Brussels, 16/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 15 March, a transnational group of MEPs, meeting across party lines under the banner of the European Parliament's Action Group on MES China, launched “a counter public consultation” on the EU granting China market economy status (MES). A decision is due to be made on granting this by the end of 2016.
Alongside the public consultation on granting China MES that was launched by the European Commission on 10 February (see EUROPE 11487), an action group at the European Parliament, formed at the initiative of Edouard Martin (S&D, France), Emmanuel Maurel (S&D, France) and David Borrelli (EFDD, Italy), has opened a counter public consultation (http://www.meschinawhynot.eu ) in order “to explore the blindspots” in the Commission's consultation.
According to this action group, which also includes Claude Rolin (EPP, Belgium), Yannick Jadot (Greens/EFA, France), Sergio Coferati (S&D, Italy), Jonas Fernandez (S&D, Spain), Georgi Pirinski (S&D, Bulgaria) and Marco Valli (EFDD, Italy), the consultation launched by the Commission suffers from “major weaknesses”: - it has been formulated in a way that is “extremely technical” and thus limits public participation;- it does not permit open answers, which bounds reasoning and thinking; - it is only available in one language; - and it is “strongly oriented” and starts from the assumption of recognising MES for China, without questioning the potential social and environmental impacts. In addition, the Commission's public consultation does not question what the participant's opinion is of granting MES to China (see other article).
The European Parliament's Action Group on MES China therefore intends to conduct a “more objective” consultation, written in several languages (at least five) and formulated in a more understandable and more neutral way. It also enquires more on the territorial, social and environmental impacts, and gives more space to open suggestions and contributions.
“This consultation must be more political in the broad and high sense of the term: something the Parliament is responsible for ensuring”, the action group states in a press release, calling for participation to be as broad as possible (including citizens, businesses, NGOs, industry associations and trade unions) in order to “counter-balance [Commission] decisions taken behind closed doors”.
The European Parliament's Action Group on MES China also wants to conduct a counter impact assessment aimed at a “more objective” assessment of the economic and social consequences for European businesses of granting MES to China. The action group's goal is “to keep a strong industrial base in Europe whilst fulfilling ambitious environmental and social objectives”.
The action group criticises the Commission's method of carrying out its impact assessment, the initial results of which were unveiled in early February (see EUROPE 11481), because “it underrepresents the risks” by only taking into account the sectors already covered by anti-dumping measures, and by only taking into consideration the consequences on direct jobs. “Neither indirect jobs - which represent two jobs for each direct job in the steel industry - nor induced jobs are taken into account”, the action group warns, criticising “a static approach, which ignores the multiplication effect of Chinese imports on the whole metallurgic industry”.
The Commission's impact assessment “cannot predict the concrete reality of the impact of this [MES] recognition, which would pave the way to de-industrialisation of large European territories, leading to poverty and social distress for many years (…) We cannot remain passive when rising job losses show that there is a significant and impending risk of collapse for European industries”, the European Parliament's Action Group on MES China concludes.
Reinhard Bütikofer (Greens/EFA, Germany) underlined this message at a press conference given by the action group on Tuesday. He criticised the Commission's public consultation as “rigged” and as offering “a binary choice”. “To try and close the debate, the Commission is trying to 'sell' us additional measures, which we know perfectly well will be much too weak. We must have a public consultation and an impact analysis that are worthy of their name. If we had not shown our opposition, the Commission would have already quietly recognised MES for China. Let's not dupe citizens!” he said.
The Commission's three options. The Commission's public consultation, which is open for ten weeks, asks stakeholders to give their opinion on three possible options: - the first would be not to move ahead with any change in the EU's anti-dumping legislation once the arrangements of the WTO protocol have expired (in other words, to keep China on the list of non-market economies); - the second would be to remove China unconditionally from the list of non-market economies; - and the third option would be to remove China from the list of non-market economies but while introducing mitigating measures through strengthening the EU's anti-dumping arsenal (see EUROPE 11482). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)