The most controversial French idea is that the EU should open a probe paving the way for tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. The main European fear is that Beijing can use lavish state support to churn out unfairly cheap vehicles that can flood the EU market at a speed and scale that threaten the EU's own e-car production.
The European Commission is discussing whether to launch an investigation that could allow Brussels to impose additional levies, known as anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs, on such cars, two senior officials
POLITICO.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said he was "very much in favor of opening a dumping investigation into electric cars as soon as possible." The European Commission had no further comment.
The electric vehicles probe is not the only anti-China offensive that the European Commission's chief trade enforcement officer, Denis Redonnet, is exploring: Brussels is also considering its first case under a new international procurement instrument against Chinese medical devices, three EU officials said. Brussels
earlier this year that it was “ready to deploy” the tool for the first time in 2023.
The goal is to push China into opening up its public procurement market by threatening to close the EU’s own highly lucrative public tender market in retaliation.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
earlier this year in Beijing that medical devices “are being excluded from the market by discriminatory ‘Buy China' policies,” which is a longstanding concern of European industry. In addition, Brussels is also looking into the Chinese rail industry, two of the officials said. On Thursday, a French economy ministry official said the idea of potentially imposing tariffs on Chinese electric cars is “in line with our position: no naivety and fair competition.”
