Brussels, 27/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - Pulled in both directions by the conflicting demands of Member States, between those, like Italy and Portugal, defending the interests of their industries and the free-traders, like the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark, which are defending the interests of their distributors and retailers, the Commission has drawn up a new five-year plan for definitive anti-dumping measures against leather shoe imports from China and Vietnam. A previous plan, involving quotas for shoes coming onto the Community market at normal tariffs and higher tariffs for shoes coming in above the quota levels, which would have exempted 80% of imports was rejected last week by EU Member States, according to Thursday's Financial Times. Trade Commission Peter Mandelson's plan proposes a 10% tariff on imports from Vietnam and 16.5% on China, according to a source close to the case quoted by Reuters.
At the time of going to press, the Commission's new proposal was being discussed by the members of the Anti-dumping committee, a sub-group of the 133 Committee, which brings together experts on trade issues from across the EU. “If Member States like this, this would form the basis of the proposal Mr Mandelson would put to the college of Commissioners at the end of the summer holidays,” said his spokesman Peter Power, earlier in the day. He went on, “If they don't like it, then clearly we would need fresh thinking”, adding “But we hope they will reach an agreement on the basis of this proposal”. The Commission's new proposal has to be accepted by all of the Member States and be ratified before the end of August for it to come into force in October, when the provisional duties, in place since 7 April, expire (see EUROPE 9138). The new definitive measures scheduled for five years are lower than those proposed by the Commission in March (19.4% and 16.8% respectively for Chinese and Vietnamese shoes). Together, China and Vietnam exported almost 1.5 billion pairs of shoes of all types to the Community market last year. Some 15% of these were subject to the provisional duties.