In its report issued on Thursday 2 October, a World Trade Organization (WTO) panel ruled that the EU’s countervailing duty on cold-rolled stainless steel flat products from Indonesia did not fully comply with the relevant WTO rules. It is therefore asking the Commission to bring its measure into line, i.e. to review the investigation or to withdraw the countervailing duty.
The judges found that the Commission had wrongly attributed certain aid granted to the steel sector to the Indonesian government and had also wrongly characterised it as unfair subsidies.
Furthermore, it should not have considered that all the Indonesian nickel mines that supply the country’s industry were state-owned.
With regard to the conduct of the investigation, the Commission described exemptions from import tariffs for certain raw materials in Indonesia as subsidies, but it should have given Jakarta the opportunity to examine this argument, according to the judges.
On the other hand, the WTO panel rejected some of Indonesia’s arguments about the conduct of the European Commission’s investigation.
Jakarta had also challenged the EU’s anti-dumping duty on the same products, but the judges did not accept the Indonesian arguments.
See the report of the panel: https://aeur.eu/f/iqn (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)