The inter-institutional talks on the modernisation of the EU’s trade defence instruments (TDI) could finish with an agreement, at a last trialogue meeting between the negotiators of the European Parliament (led by their rapporteur, Christofer Fjellner, EPP, Sweden), of the Estonian Presidency of the Council, and of the Commission on Tuesday 5 and Wednesday 6 December, if necessary.
“There is a majority at the European Parliament for an agreement”, a source close to the matter told EUROPE, underlining a resolve to conclude the file under the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU, and a certain “mistrust” with regard to the Bulgarian Presidency which is to take over in the first half of 2018. “A real decision is expected on Tuesday or Wednesday. The Council will not be able to move much any more”, the source said.
With the help of the compromise proposals of the Commission, the European Parliament negotiators and those from the Estonian Presidency could conclude an agreement in principle on the key points of the text: - the lesser duty rule, which would give the Commission the possibility to impose corrective duties up to the full amount of the dumping margin, in certain limited cases; - the disclosure of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations; - reimbursements of duties received at re-examination investigations relating to the expiry of duties.
The Council has not moved on the thresholds that it supports for the possible derogations to the lesser duty rule in cases of distortion in the cost of raw materials used to manufacture products targeted by the investigations. It proposes that limited derogations to the rule be possible when raw materials account for over 27% of the cost of production of the targeted products and when these raw materials taken individually have an impact above 7% of the cost of productions. The Parliament, which is reported to want only a single threshold, would be ready to accept the two thresholds, but lower, according to information received by EUROPE.
The Council has not moved on the time period that it wants (four weeks) for the pre-disclosure of investigations (the Commission proposed two weeks, the Parliament wants one week). To facilitate an agreement, the Commission has proposed recording imports to avoid stockpiling.
Following the example of what was obtained as part of the EU’s new anti-dumping methodology, the Parliament could be taken into account by the future regulation of international standards on work and the environment. The Parliament supports the Commission’s proposal of not concluding agreements on minimum prices, like that negotiated in 2013 with China on solar panels, with the third countries that have not ratified the ILO conventions and international agreements on the environment such as the Paris Agreement. This would be “important progress”, the Greens/EFA ecologists group at the European Parliament say.
In addition, in order to ensure an agreement in principle, the negotiators will have to find a way out on the “important issue” of whether or not to apply anti-dumping duties to steel tubes for oil platforms. While the Parliament wants these duties to apply to these products, the Council is opposed to this, raising concerns about the feasibility at a technical level.
The project to modernise the TDI, which was tabled by the Commission in 2013, remained bogged down at the Council until the fragile agreement made by qualified majority under the Slovak Presidency at the end of 2016 (see EUROPE 11688). The European Parliament reached its approach in April 2014 (see EUROPE 11063). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)