At the end of the informal ministerial meeting in Valletta on Friday 3 March, Malta's Economy Minister Christian Cardona said that the EU trade ministers gave "broad support" to the new draft methodology, presented by the European Commission at the end of 2016, for the anti-dumping calculation to settle the issue of how to handle China in the EU's anti-dumping investigations after the arrangements on this expired in China's WTO accession protocol.
"The Maltese presidency (...) aims for a Council position coming this spring. It was a very positive discussion on the Commission's proposal, and there was broad support for the basis of this proposal. We all agree on having a good legal basis, an instrument that will be in line with the WTO rules and that gives us predictable, balanced and fair rules for our operators", Cardona stated. "Considering the wider context of a dynamic global scenario, the presidency will further intensify work in the run-up to the Foreign Affairs Council Trade (...) in Brussels on May 11", he added. After the expiry of the arrangements in its WTO accession protocol, China asked, on 12 December, for the opening of consultations with the EU at the WTO (see EUROPE 11687).
The proposal for the EU's new anti-dumping methodology, presented by the Commission in November 2016 (see EUROPE 11664), comes in the wider context of the reform of the EU's trade defence policy and the plan to update its trade defence instruments. The Council and European Parliament will now negotiate on this in trialogue (see EUROPE 11735) after the agreement obtained at the Council under Slovak presidency at the end of 2016, following three years of blockage (see EUROPE 11688).
"This is not about a protectionist approach but about re-establishing a level playing field with certain partners like China", Belgium's Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said at a press conference earlier in the day.
"I feel the Maltese Presidency really wants to move ahead – and that everyone has finally understood that it was a subject that required very strong responses to be made", France's Trade Secretary Matthias Fekl stated. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)