EU Votes 18–4 Against Provisional Chinese Solar Duties

May 29th, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

This article was originally published on Solar Love.

Rather than take the course the United States took, EU member states have overwhelmingly voted against imposing provisional anti-dumping duties on solar imports from China. The vote was 18 opposed, 4 in favor, and 5 abstaining. A proposed 47% average anti-dumping duty could still be implemented (this vote just concerned provisional duties). But that is far from certain, especially following this week’s vote.

Photo Credit: R/DV/RS / Foter.com / CC BY

The vote follows intense lobbying from China as well as from European solar installers and their representatives and allies.

As noted yesterday, German leadership has been especially public about its preference not to impose the duties, as have UK leaders. Furthermore, 15 solar trade associations within the EU have expressed their opposition to such duties.

Nonetheless, European Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht is expected to push forward the plan to impose the 47% average duties, and is expected to publish them in early June.

Ray Noble, the UK Solar Trade Association’s PV Specialist, notes: “We understand that under EU rules, despite a clear majority vote, the Commissioner can still go ahead and impose these duties. I suggest David Cameron and Angela Merkel work together to sort out these absurd rules and remove this lingering market uncertainty, so that industry can get on with installing low cost, clean and affordable solar energy.”

Notably, in contrast to the UK and Germany, some of Europe’s largest countries (and solar leaders) voted for the provision duties, such as Spain, Italy, and France.

We’ll keep you updated….

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Tags: China, China Solar, Chinese solar module duties, chinese solar modules, EU, EU China, EU china solar trade, eu china solar trade dispute, EU china trade war

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Dill-Weed/100000216524046 Dill Weed

EU can scoop up cheaply made panels while the US sits on the sidelines. Probably a good thing, I think.
James Wimberley

Good news from the sausage factory. I can’t believe the full Commission (it’s not up to de Gucht alone) will go ahead with very disruptive provisional duties for 6 months when it knows that definitive ones will be voted down in December.

The Chinese government won with old-fashioned arm-twisting of EU governments (“Nice little export market you have here, shame if anything happened to it”), but so what. Cheap PV is far more important to the world than where it’s made. China is admittedly currently helping (many of) its solar PV producers stay afloat through a temporary bad patch – like the rescue of GM by the US government.