In a key speech aimed at defining a doctrine on China, Ursula von der Leyen called on European leaders to resist Beijing’s attempts to divide them. “A strong European policy towards China depends on strong coordination between Member States and European institutions as well as the willingness to to avoid the “divide and conquer” tactics that we know we will encounter,” defended the President of the Commission.
The Community executive now considers that, with its radical change of position on European tariffs on Chinese electric carsPedro Sánchez ignored the president and succumbed to President Xi Jinping’s game. During his visit to Beijing this week, the Prime Minister urged Brussels to “reconsider” these surcharges of up to 36.3%, the aim of which is to compensate for the damage caused to European industry by the enormous “illegal” state aid that the sector receives from the Asian giant.
The reversal of Sanchez, who had initially supported this measure, “weakens” the European positionas explained outside the micro-community sources. The community executive attributes its change to a possible offer of investments in Spain by China. “We must follow the money trail,” say the sources consulted.
[Pedro Sánchez ofrece a China defender en la UE aranceles menos agresivos a cambio de inversiones en España]
In public, the official reaction from Brussels is much more diplomatic, even if it reveals its discomfort.We are not going to comment on the statements made by Prime Minister Sánchez.“The European Commission’s aim now is to continue to take the corresponding procedural steps in our investigation while remaining open to a negotiated solution with the Chinese authorities,” said Commerce spokesperson Olof Gill.
“Government fears China’s trade measures against Spanish products or a potential threat from China to abandon its investments in electric car factories in Spain. The problem is that by changing, Sánchez will turn against the Commission, which is much more important for Spain. I think it is a very bad decision,” he explains to this newspaper. Alicia Garcia-HerreroChief Economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis.
“The Commission is responsible for EU trade policy“We launched this investigation based on clear evidence, we have pursued the investigation with careful and meticulous evidence collection and following all WTO and EU rules,” the Commerce spokesperson stressed. “It is not our role to describe in detail a possible solution in this investigation. It is the Chinese authorities who must offer us a solution. negotiated that addresses the problem we identified in our investigation, he added.
In this sense, the Community Executive announced this Thursday that it had rejected as insufficient all the Offers presented by Chinese manufacturers to increase their minimum prices, in order to compensate for the effect of subsidies and thus avoid EU tariff surcharges.
“The Commission examined these offers in depth, focusing on whether they would eliminate the harmful effects of the subsidies identified in the investigation and whether they could be implemented and controlled effectively. We concluded that None of these offers meet the requirements“, the spokesperson explained.
The next stage of the conflict will be a meeting between the Commission’s economic vice-president, Valdis Dombrovskis, and the Chinese commerce minister, Wang Wentao. The meeting is scheduled for September 19 in Brussels.
If no negotiated solution is ultimately found, Member States will have to vote before 30 October on the imposition of definitive tariff surcharges, lasting 5 years. To reverse this measure a qualified majority of Member States is required against, it doesn’t exist at the moment.
At present, the only major member state that has joined the Spanish position is Germany. The difference is that Berlin was skeptical about tariff surcharges on Chinese electric cars from the beginning. “We share this direction,” the German chancellor’s spokesman, Olaf Scholz, told Bloomberg when asked about Sánchez’s statements.
