EU Suspends Anti-Dumping And Countervailing Laws Reform Plan

A few days ago, because EU Member States failed to reach agreement on the revised anti-dumping and countervailing laws, the European Commission trade commissioner Mandelson decided to shelve the reform plan.

In 2006, the European Commission proposed amendments to anti-dumping and countervailing laws to resist unfair competition in other countries, and hoped to improve the pparency of trade protection laws.

Taking into account factors such as subcontracting and pfer of enterprises to low cost countries, Mandelson believes that in the face of the increasing import of products from the new economic countries such as China, the EU member domestic enterprises must reform the anti-dumping rules. That is to say, EU anti-dumping duties on products imported from China and other countries have severely hit the EU enterprises that are producing overseas.

In order to carry out this reform, the European Commission has extensively solicited opinions from European business, industry, importers and distributors at the end of 2006.

European industry questioned this.

In June 2007, representatives of 10 industries, including European textile, chemical, metal, iron ore and fertilizer, complained to Barroso, chairman of the European Commission, accusing Mandelson of using technology and bureaucracy to minimize the use of trade protection laws.

In 2006, the EU Commission imposed anti-dumping duties on shoes imported from some Asian countries (China and India), regardless of the interests of large retailers in the EU (such as Sweden and Britain).

In 2007, the European Union member's domestic Committee was divided by the European Commission's proposal to impose anti-dumping duties on compact fluorescent energy saving lamps imported from China by OSRAM, the largest producer of energy-efficient lamps in Europe. The move was strongly opposed to the Philip company in Holland, because the company set up factories in China and produced a large number of energy-saving lamps.

Mandelson pointed out that the EU Steel Corp requested the European Commission to impose anti-dumping duties on steel imported from China, which will be the next battle between China and Europe.

And he thought it would be a very difficult case.