Italy and Spain were backing European Union tariffs on imports of China built electric vehicles, government sources told Reuters ahead of a Monday midnight deadline for all 27 EU members to take their stand on the matter.
The vote was non-binding but could influence the final conclusion of the European Commission which oversees bloc trade policy. It set provisional duties of up to 37.6% on EVs imported from China, ratcheting up tensions with Beijing.
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Reuters said the EU executive was canvassing EU governments’ views in an “advisory” vote, which the commission was expected to take into account when deciding whether to follow up with definitive duties in what was the EU’s highest profile trade case yet.
The commission said the vote was confidential and it would not disclose the outcome.
Government sources on Monday told Reuters Italy had voted in favour and that Spain would do the same in their written submissions.
Sweden planned to abstain, trade minister Johan Forssell told Reuters. Germany was also set to abstain, sources had told the news agency on Friday. One of them said this was in the spirit of “critical solidarity” with the commission.
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By GlobalDataA number of EU governments had been hesitating, Reuters added.
Poland’s development ministry reportedly said Warsaw’s position was still the subject of consultations between ministries. Greece had yet to take a position as of Saturday.
Reuters noted that, a decade ago, the EU executive did not impose tariffs on Chinese solar panels after it became clear that a large group of EU members did not support them. EU manufacturing subsequently collapsed.
The commission would continue its investigation and determine whether to propose definitive duties that would typically apply for five years.
If it did push for tariffs, Reuters noted, they would come up for a binding vote among the EU members, and would be blocked if a qualified majority of 15 member countries representing 65% of the EU population voted against.
The near four month window before then would allow Brussels and Beijing to negotiate a possible resolution to tariffs that would hit Chinese producers such as BYD, Geely and SAIC and Western automakers such as Tesla and BMW.
Beijing had threatened wide ranging retaliation, Reuters added.
