The rapporteur of the text in the European Parliament, Christophe Hansen (EPP, Luxembourg), received 478 amendments on his draft report on foreign subsidies that distort competition in the European Union (see EUROPE 12868/4). However, he is confident that an agreement can be reached between the different political groups, as he believes that there is a general convergence of opinion on the vision of this European instrument to protect against these practices.
The Greens/EFA and The Left groups would like to broaden the definition of problematic foreign subsidies, which they currently consider too narrow. In the rapporteur’s view, however, the concept of “financial contribution” in the European Commission’s proposal is already quite broad.
Furthermore, the thresholds proposed by the Commission to class a subsidy as distorting competition, and which the rapporteur has also used, are also the subject of discussions between the groups.
The S&D, Greens/EFA and The Left groups advocate lowering these thresholds in order to cover enough problematic subsidies. However, Christophe Hansen warns against ensuring the effectiveness of the emerging instrument. “We should bear in mind that we already have an ex officio investigation tool to cover cases that fall below the thresholds”, he stressed.
Another major issue in the current discussions is that some groups, such as Renew Europe and the S&D, want the possibility of excluding companies who receive unfair foreign subsidies from future public procurement contracts to be part of the remedy.
Finally, MEPs still need to agree on the subsequent modification of the thresholds by the Commission after the instrument being implemented for a certain period of time. For social democrats, it is vital that this happens through the process of a revision via a new regulation, and not through the adoption of a simple delegated act. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)