As promised, China has appealed to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in response to the European Union’s decision to impose duties on electric cars imported from the People’s Republic starting July 5, which Brussels accuses of unfairly favoring domestic producers with state subsidies. “China has appealed to the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said, calling on the EU “to immediately correct its bad practices.”
Beijing’s appeal to the WTO fuels tensions between China and the European Union, which arose after Brussels introduced temporary additional customs duties of up to 38% on imports of Chinese electric cars into the Old Continent. Before the measure, strongly supported by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and opposed by countries such as Germany and Hungary, the latest-generation vehicles made in China were taxed at 10%.
As already explained in this article, Brussels has until November to finalize these increases, which opens a window of dialogue with Beijing. In the hope that this will not be closed after the appeal to the WTO. The fear was expressed by Wang Yiwei, director of the Center for European Studies at Renmin University of China, according to whom the move by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce is a sign that the talks between the two parties are not going well and, therefore, would not be sufficient to resolve the issue of subsidies for electric vehicles.
Chinese Electric Car Tariffs Bypassed Thanks to Türkiye
In announcing that it had referred the matter to the World Trade Organization, the Chinese ministry did not spare criticism of Brussels. “The EU’s preliminary ruling lacks factual and legal basis, seriously violates WTO rules and undermines global cooperation in the fight against climate change,” said the ministry spokesperson. Brussels is at a crossroads: the choice to apply duties on imports of Chinese electric cars is explained by the need, on the one hand, to defend the important European automotive industry and, on the other, to pursue the policy envisaged by the Green Deal. All this while preserving an economic and political relationship with the Asian giant.
