Beijing brought the case to the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism on Monday. According to a statement by China’s Ministry of Commerce, the complaint is intended to safeguard the development interests of the electric vehicle industry. Beijing has reiterated its strong opposition to EU tariffs, criticizing the fees for trade protectionism.
The risk of an “eye for an eye” confrontation is growing
China’s formal complaint increases risk of greater eye-for-an-eye confrontation in bilateral trade relations worth EUR 739 billion in 2023
The bloc defended tariffs, claiming they are the result of an investigation into Chinese government subsidies that unfairly benefit the sector.
EU actions are groundless?
“China believes that the EU’s final anti-subsidy ruling has no factual or legal basisviolates WTO rules and constitutes an abuse of trade remedies,” a ministry spokesman said in a statement, quoted by Bloomberg.
Further in the statement, the spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of…calls on the EU to face its mistakes and immediately correct its illegal practices and to jointly maintain the stability of the global electric vehicle supply chain and economic and trade cooperation between China and the EU.
Unsuccessful search for an alternative to customs duties
The EU and China, the EU’s other goods trading partner, have been holding discussions to find alternative solutions even after the tariffs come into force, but the talks have so far failed to produce a breakthrough.
The bloc decided to send officials to Beijing for more talks, Bloomberg reported last week. Both sides were examining whether an agreement could be reached on so-called price commitments, a complex mechanism to control prices and export volumes.which would avoid customs duties. Both Brussels and Beijing indicated that differences remained significant.
