The European Commission is keeping its promise to defend the interests of its companies: it has launched a consultation request at the World Trade Organization (WTO), challenging China’s initiation of an anti-subsidy investigation against certain dairy products from the EU. This is the first step in the WTO dispute settlement procedure. If the two parties cannot agree to resolve the issue within 60 days, the EU will be entitled to request a panel to be set although it may also do so at a later date.
This is the first time that the EU has launched such a procedure, even though the results of the Chinese investigation are not yet known. The latter was only opened in August (see EUROPE 13466/2).
The EU is of the opinion that China has recently followed a pattern of “initiating trade defence measures, based on questionable allegations and insufficient evidence”. Since January 2024, Beijing has launched investigations into wines and spirits, pork and European dairy products. The first of these investigations provisionally concluded that dumping had occurred, but for the time being no tariffs have been imposed (see EUROPE 13471/6).
At the same time, the European anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles is continuing; the intention is to put in place definitive countervailing duties by 30 October (see EUROPE 13486/24). (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)