The European Commission opened an anti-subsidy proceeding on imports of biodiesel originating in Indonesia on Thursday 6 December.
This decision follows a complaint lodged by the European Biodiesel Board (EBB) on 22 October on behalf of producers representing more than 25% of total biodiesel production in the Union.
"The Indonesian industry is highly subsidised and export-oriented: we cannot compete with these products", EBB Secretary General Raffaello Garofalo told EUROPE. "We are therefore welcoming the opening of this anti-subsidy procedure and hope that the EU Trade Defence authorities will rapidly apply a provisional duty. For the EBB, this is a legitimate fight to protect the European biodiesel market and the 120,000 jobs it supports.”
If the European Commission discovers preliminary evidence of subsidisation, it may impose provisional duties of up to four months within the next nine months.
Where appropriate, the definitive countervailing duties shall be applied within 13 months of the initiation of the investigation.
This proceeding follows the termination of an anti-dumping investigation on Indonesian biodiesel - in parallel with the same investigation on Argentine biodiesel. Following a dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the European measures were found to be incompatible with the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement (see EUROPE 11949).
A similar investigation was opened against Argentine biodiesel in February 2018 (see EUROPE 11953).
The measure is published in the Official Journal of the EU: https://bit.ly/2QgAmKy. (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)