The inter-institutional negotiations on updating the EU trade defence instruments (TDI) continue to be stalled after a new trialogue meeting on Tuesday 7 November between negotiators from the European Parliament, led by Christofer Fjellner (EPP, Sweden), from the Estonian Presidency of the EU Council, and from the European Commission.
On Tuesday, the Estonian Presidency presented a counter-proposal to the package deal presented by MEPs in mid-October that included proposals on the three key points of the text – the lesser duty rule, the disclosure of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations, and the reimbursement of duties collected from review investigations relating to the expiry of duties – EUROPE was told on Wednesday 8 November by a source close to the issue.
It was a counter-proposal that did not enable "any progress", this source stated, saying that the Council is sticking to its positions on two of the key points.
The Council has not budged on the thresholds it supports for possible exemptions to the lesser duty rule in cases of distortion in the cost of raw materials used to manufacture products that are targeted by investigations (it proposes that limited exemptions to the rule might be possible when raw materials account for over 27% of the cost of production of the product targeted, and when these raw materials taken individually have an impact of more than 7% of the cost of production).
Nor has the Council budged on the time it supports – four weeks – for the disclosure of investigations (the Commission proposed two weeks, while the European Parliament wants one week).
Two new trialogues are planned on 23 November and 5 December.
The draft update of the TDI, which was tabled by the Commission in 2013, remained stuck at the Council until the fragile agreement reached by qualified majority under the Slovak Presidency of the EU Council at the end of 2016 (see EUROPE 11688). The Parliament had agreed on its approach in April 2014 (see EUROPE 11063). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)