On Wednesday 20 December, the Council of the EU confirmed, at the level of the ambassadors of the member states (Coreper), the inter-institutional agreement in principle concluded on 5 December on the revision of the EU’s trade defence instruments, proposed by the Commission in April 2013 (see EUROPE 11920).
Under this agreement, the new rules will increase the transparency and predictability for the imposition of provisional anti-dumping measures and anti-subsidy measures, by providing for a pre-disclosure period of three weeks after the information is made public, during which provisional duties will not yet be applied, as well as additional safety nets addressing the issue of stockpiling imported products.
They will make it possible to open investigations without an official request from industry if there is a threat of retaliation from a third country and authorise unions to submit complaints jointly with industry and become interested parties in the proceedings.
They shorten the investigation period to a normal period of seven months, but no more than eight months. Definitive duties will have to be imposed within 14 months.
Higher anti-dumping duties may be imposed where there are raw material distortions and these raw materials, including energy, account for more than 17% of this cost. This would allow for an adaptation of the level of duties imposed under the “lesser duty rule” if it is in the interests of the EU. The imposition of higher duties will include a target profit set at a minimum of 6%.
The new rules will also allow importers to be reimbursed duties collected during an expiry review in the event of trade defence measures not being maintained.
They take account of social and environmental standards when assessing the acceptability of an undertaking and when establishing the injury elimination margin.
The new regulation will enter into force once it has been approved by the Council of Ministers of the EU and by the European Parliament, whose committee on international trade will first be called upon, most likely on 23 January, to confirm the inter-institutional agreement in principle. The formal adoption process is likely to be concluded by the end of the first half of 2018.
In parallel, the EU’s new methodology for calculating anti-dumping taxes (see EUROPE 11918) entered into force on 20 December. It is accompanied by an initial country report on market distortions resulting from considerable state interference; this concerns China, the object of most of the EU’s anti-dumping activity (see EUROPE 11930). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)