Cambodia and the Cambodian Rice Federation on Thursday, 11 April asked the Court of Justice of the EU to annul the regulation of 16 January 2019 imposing trade safeguard measures against Indica rice imports from Cambodia and Burma (see EUROPE 12170/21).
Since 16 January, the regulation in question has imposed a duty on imports of Cambodian and Burmese rice (which are currently duty-free) of 175 €/tonne in 2019, gradually reduced to 150 €/t in 2020 and 125 €/t in 2021.
In a statement, the Cambodian Rice Federation recalls that exports of Indica rice originating in Cambodia were exempted from any import duty under the Everything But Arms regime.
For the Cambodian federation, the safeguard measures are “fundamentally misguided and a misapplication of EU law”. According to it, during the investigation “the Commission clearly failed to gather all required evidence”. The Commission is accused of ignoring data that could have prevented such safeguard measures.
“The assessment of the effects of imports from Cambodia is flawed and fails to prove that the difficulties faced by the Union industry are a consequence of the Cambodian imports’ volume and prices.”, concludes the Cambodian federation. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)