EU adopts extra tariffs of up to 35.3% on China-made electric cars

by Anna Brunetti and Thomas Moller-Nielsen

The European Commission on Tuesday (29 October) confirmed tariffs of up to 35.3% on Chinese-made electric cars, wrapping up a consultation period launched in October last year to establish whether Beijing’s subsidies had undercut European competition.

The duties are on top of the current 10% duty on imports of electric vehicles from China. The decision will become law once it is published in the EU’s official journal on Wednesday and will then come into force on Thursday.

A senior Commission official told reporters in Brussels that persisting "broad disagreements over each and every fact" and "legal argument" around the original issue of subsidies - and how these were characterised - motivated Tuesday’s decision.

The official also said the move was aimed at "sav[ing] the European car industry" against how "Chinese imports have developed in the most recent period."

"What we do is we apply the law in a non-discriminatory way," they added.

Also due to what the Commission sees as unfair competition from artificially low-priced China-made EVs, "it seems that there is a clear and imminent threat of our car industry not making the transition to electric vehicles," the official said.

"Therefore there’s really no alternative, in our view, to what we have done."

Another Commission source also defended the clout of the EU to engage in individual discussions with carmakers on setting out a minimum sale price - a trade-related agreement also referred to as "price undertaking".

"Since different undertaking offers were tabled by these individual exporters, the Commission in fact has the duty to analyse them on their own merits, meaning we cannot discriminate between undertaking offers tabled by different parties."

On Monday, China’s Commerce Ministry accused Brussels of attempting to bypass Beijing by negotiating with individual exporters.

The Commission official also said that "rebasing" the negotiations around the matter of price undertakings had actually "allowed both sides to work on a solution that is more promising" - after discussions on the issue of subsidisation "didn’t go anywhere."

Last week, a Commission spokesperson said that "significant remaining gaps" needed to be addressed after the eighth round of talks between EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis and China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

According to the Commission’s read-out of the meeting, Dombrovskis reiterated "concerns about the ongoing Chinese anti-dumping case against brandy and the initiations on pork and dairy, which the EU side finds unsubstantiated."

Philipp Lausberg, a senior policy analyst at the European Policy Centre (EPC), a Brussels-based research group, told Euractiv on Monday (28 October) that Beijing is likely to retaliate against the application of definitive duties.

This is expected to result in China confirming duties on European dairy and pork imports - adding to measures announced earlier this month on brandy imports.

*first published in: Euractiv.com