The European Parliament's S&D Group is determined to force the hand of the member states in order to strengthen clearly the draft update of the EU's trade defence instruments in the interinstitutional negotiations that were launched on Tuesday 21 March between the Parliament's negotiators, led by their rapporteur Christofer Fjellner (EPP, Sweden), and the Maltese Presidency of the EU Council.
"The member states have been wasting precious time and they have now missed the opportunity to push for strong legislation to defend EU companies and EU jobs against unfair competition. The lack of ambition in the member states’ proposals means there will be a tough negotiation process with the European Parliament", the S&D Group warned in a press release signed by the chair of the Parliament's international trade committee, Bernd Lange from Germany, and his colleague Alessia Mosca from Italy.
The S&D Group intends to fight so that the future legislation supports SMEs by providing a helpdesk to assist them with putting together the initial evidence of economic injury and to assist them with legal consultancy because "the costs linked to the complaint procedure can easily rise to over €200,000 [which] make them inaccessible for SMEs".
The S&D Group also wants application of the lesser duty rule when social and environmental standards are not respected by the exporting country.
In addition, the S&D Group supports the removal of the pre-disclosure clause and shipping clause. The European Commission proposes that EU importers and exporting third countries be warned two weeks before provisional anti-dumping duties are imposed, and it proposes that no measures be imposed during this period. (The Council plans to extend this period to four weeks.) "Neighbouring countries and even far-east operators would be able to take advantage of this period to ship all their stocks to European harbours before any anti-dumping duties could be imposed", the S&D Group argues.
The group also rejects the Commission's proposal (supported by the Council) to reimburse duties collected during expiry-review investigations if the investigation does not result in a renewal of the measures. "This would represent an additional disadvantage for EU producers compared to foreign companies", according to the S&D Group.
Agreement in June seems unrealistic. On Tuesday, the first trialogue enabled "preliminary discussions" on this sensitive issue, a source told EUROPE on Wednesday 22 March. The draft update of the trade defence instruments, which was tabled by the Commission in 2013, remained stuck in the Council until the fragile agreement reached by qualified majority under the Slovak Presidency of the Council at the end of 2016 (see EUROPE 11688). The European Parliament had identified its approach in early 2014 (see EUROPE 11012).
The Parliament negotiators, the Maltese Presidency and the Commission plan to meet again in April, May and then in June in order to reach an agreement by the end of June. However, given the "friction" between the member states on this issue and the "instability" of the general approach at the Council, this timetable is deemed "unrealistic", in the opinion of diplomats close to the issue. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)