The European Union (EU) adopted this Tuesday the regulations to apply heavy additional tariffsof up to 35.3%, to electric vehicles imported from China, seen as responsible for harm to competition in the bloc.
These vehicles were already subject to 10% customs duties and now have tariffs that reach a maximum of 35.3% and vary depending on the companies, for a period of five years. The regulation will become law after being published on Wednesday in the Official Journal of the EU.
In a statement, the European Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, noted that “we welcome the competitionincluding in the electric vehicle sector, but it must be based on justice and equal conditions.
The European bloc suspects that the companies that will be subject to the additional tariffs benefit from subsidiesand this state aid allows them to compete under advantageous conditions.
The adoption of the regulations marked the end of the investigation carried out by the European Commission (the executive arm of the EU) into these subsidies. In accordance with the regulations, the automotive group’s products SAIC will have an additional tariff of 35.3%, the BYD group 17% and the Geely group 18.8 percent.
Companies that cooperated with EU investigations regarding the impact on competition in the bloc will have a tariff of 20.7%, and the rest of the firms 35.3 percent. Since the EU began discussing these additional tariffs, China criticized “unfair and irrational protectionist practices.”
China and the EU have been in contact for several months to try to find a negotiated solution to the situation, and the EU announced that it is willing to cancel these additional fees if an agreement is reached.
The idea of these customs duties has pitted France and Germany, the bloc’s two largest economies, against each other. France, on the one hand, maintains that the measure is necessary to level the competitionas EU car manufacturers are at a clear disadvantage compared to their Chinese competitors.
However, Germany, recognized for its strong automotive industry and whose largest manufacturers have invested heavily in China, warned that the EU must avoid harming itself and asked that negotiations continue with the Chinese authorities.
