Five months after inter-institutional negotiations started on a European Commission proposal to modernise the European Union’s trade defence instruments, so-called ‘trilogue” discussions are now stalled. One of the hottest items on the soon-ending Maltese EU presidency’s trade plate was to deliver an agreement on a 2013 regulatory proposal to modernise the EU’s …
Disputes & TDI
US Section 232 : French, German, UK steel most at risk in Europe
A new study released by the Washington-based Peterson Institute reveals that German, British and French steel exports are likely to be hit most by new trade retaliatory measures initiated and envisaged by the Donald Trump administration since it took office in January 2017. The US has initiated various antidumping measures …
Insight: Airbus-Boeing – a “proxy war” fought by Brussels and Washington
Updated at 19:30 CET. A WTO compliance ruling released on 9 June 2017 has induced both Brussels and Washington to claim victory over a dispute involving subsidies to US aerospace company Boeing. Some experts reached by Borderlex see this latest development as being only one episode in an already twelve-year-old “proxy war” …
EU China summit: progress on GIs, new dialogue on subsidies
The article was updated on 05/06/2017 8.25 CET. Council president Donald Tusk hailed the 19th EU China summit in Brussels this week as “the most promising summit” with China he ever attended. EU leaders held the press waiting for more than three hours before announcing little concrete steps …
TDI: Industry MEPs say no to including social measures in new methodology
A draft opinion submitted by MEP Paloma López Bermejo (GUE/NGL, Spain) on the Commission proposal ‘Protection against dumped and subsidised imports from countries not members of the EU’ – proposing a new antidumping methodology – was dismissed on Tuesday (30 May 2017). Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, …
Merkel says ready to talk with Macron on “reciprocity” in trade
Emmanuel Macron, France’s freshly inaugurated President, met Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin today. Germans wonder whether he is making the EU more protectionist. But Merkel welcomes his insistence on demanding greater reciprocity in market openings from European trading partners. Quizzed by the press about his plans to introduce a Buy European Act …
COMMENT – Trade defence: waiving lesser duty rule won’t buy more protection
The European Parliament and the member states are about to launch trilogue negotiations on the modernisation of trade defence instruments, a package of reform measures launched almost four years ago. Christofer Fjellner asks whether one of the reforms’ central planks, lifting a so-called lesser duty rule, will really offer more …
MEPs want labour market criteria in new trade defence methodology
The EU is putting its final touches to a change to its antidumping law that would alter its standard damage calculation methodology, and give the Commission more responsibility in monitoring sensitive markets by drafting relevant industry and country reports. The member states have now agreed on their common position. As …
Council agrees on new TDI methodology
Member states have agreed on a new methodology to calculate antidumping duties after almost six months of internal negotiations. The suggested methodology will apply to all trade defence cases in future once adopted. The change to the EU’s basic antidumping regulation follows on plans to do away with a specific methodology – the …
New EU antidumping methodology: MEPs weigh in
The European Parliament has circulated its first report version on EU plans to overhaul its trade defence methodology in response to China no longer being considered a ‘non market economy’. The proposals tabled by the parliament’s rapporteur Salvatore Cicu (EPP) partly converge with the latest version of the Council’s own latest plans, …
