Brussels, 19/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 19 May, the European Commission announced new measures to increase transparency in its trade defence procedures and to simplify communication with stakeholders about the framework of these procedures.
From now on, just as it did as part of its anti-subsidy investigation launched on 13 May into the import of hot-rolled steel from China (see EUROPE 15551), the Commission will regularly publish an executive summary of any requests for new investigation or review of existing anti-dumping or anti-subsidy measures to improve stakeholders' access to information on trade defence cases.
The objective is to “help spread the information about any starting investigation to the public at large and guarantee that all interested parties can bring their contribution”, the Commission states.
In addition, the Commission will set up a new online platform to improve communication with and between stakeholders involved in ongoing procedures. The platform, named TRON (from Trade Online), will offer the parties involved in each trade defence procedure, instant online access to the entire non-confidential case-related file. “This provides relief particularly to smaller companies that will no longer be obliged to request access to the file through a Brussels-based representative”, the Commission states.
In the future, the TRON platform will include two additional features: it will allow stakeholders to send their observations to the Commission, and will allow the Commission to send communication - for example, preliminary investigation findings - to the interested parties.
The pilot phase for both additional features will be rolled out in the coming weeks to make the whole system fully operational by the end of 2016. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)