The President of the CoR PES Group, Catiuscia Marini, and the CoR rapporteur on steel, Isolde Ries, Vice-President of the Saarland Landtag (PES/Germany), co-signed today a letter to the European Commission's President Jean-Claude Juncker, initiated by MEP Edouard Martin (S&D/France) and co-signed by some 35 Members of the European Parliament as well as by the President of the Workers' Group in the Economic and Social Committee, Gabriele Bischoff.
While welcoming the European Commission's statement that it will not propose granting Market Economy Status (MES) to China, the letter urges that the proposed new non-standard methodology should be firmly founded on the provisions of Section 15 of China’s WTO Accession Protocol which will remain in force after December 2016 and must thus not lead to a de facto granting of MES to China.
The letter also welcomes that in its latest communication on "a robust trade policy, adopted on 19 October, the Commission announced its intention to include a grandfathering clause in its forthcoming proposal - that would ensure that the analogue country methodology will still apply legitimately for all anti-dumping investigations that will start after 11 December 2016 and until the entry into force of the new legislation.
Regarding the partial lifting of the so-called lesser duty-rule in the modernization package of the Trade Defence Instruments (TDI), the signatories stress that the issues of the MES of China and of the TDI modernization should be tackled at the same time. If the proposed “new methodology” does not effectively shelter EU producers from unfairly dumped Chinese exports, the ability to mobilize TDIs - even if the intention is to reinforce them - would be severely diminished.
With the purpose of maintaining a strong anti-dumping tool, progressive forces urge the Commission to include a series of key elements in its forthcoming legislative proposal, including:
- A clear link between the trigger of the new “non-standard” anti-dumping methodology and the EU’s market economy criteria: the use of Chinese prices and costs as a basis for calculating dumping should depend on China’s (and on Chinese producers’) complete fulfilment of the EU’s five criteria as established by EU law and practice;
- Non-reversal of the burden of proof: it should remain up to China and to the Chinese exporters to prove that they operate under normal market economy conditions;
- Non-discrimination between economic sectors: the new methodology should be equally actionable by all industrial sectors and EU producers affected by injurious dumping.
- Last but not least, in order to better assess the possible consequences of the forthcoming legislative proposal, the Commission is requested to publish as soon as possible the results of the impact assessment and of the public consultation it held in spring 2016.
