The European Union's trade chief vowed to tax solar panels from China next month in the largest EU commercial dispute of its kind while urging Chinese exporters to raise prices in return for an eventual end to tariffs.
EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht defended a plan to impose provisional duties on Chinese manufacturers of solar panels for allegedly selling them in the 27-nation EU below cost, a practice known as dumping.
The EU levies, due to be imposed from June 6th, would be the preliminary outcome of a dumping inquiry that the European Commission opened in September and that German chancellor Angela Merkel said two days ago should not lead to permanent duties against China.
"The commission is the 27-nation EU's regulatory arm. "The commission has a clear responsibility, and the commissioner for trade has a clear responsibility, to follow through in terms of trade defense on behalf of Europe, " John Clancy, spokesman for Mr De Gucht, told reporters today in Brussels.
“It’s about trade justice and doing the right thing for Europe’s workers and European companies.”
The dumping investigation covers €21 billion of EU imports in 2011 of crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels, and cells and wafers used in them.
European companies including Solarworld AG, Germany's largest maker of the renewable-energy technology, are demanding punitive levies to counter growing competition from China following similar US trade protection.
Europe accounts for about three-quarters of the global photovoltaic market.
The planned provisional duties will affect more than 100 Chinese companies and average 47.6 per cent, an EU trade official said on May 8th. The dumping probe is due to end in early December, by which time EU governments must decide whether to impose “definitive” anti-dumping duties for five years.
The Chinese government and a group of EU nations including the UK are fighting to prevent anti-dumping protection.
Mr Clancy, noting that EU governments play only an advisory role at the stage of provisional measures, cited the need for the commission to act “in the face of very clear potential dumping through an overcapacity in the Chinese market of solar panels.”
