BRUSSELS, Belgium - At the end of last year, the European Commission has adopted a Green Paper aimed at launching a reflection on the EU trade defence mechanisms including all dumping measures. This is one part of DG Trade’s strategy to ensure Europe’s competitiveness in the changing global economy. Trade defence instruments are anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and safeguard measures. They are meant to defend European producers against unfair trade practices and against shifts in trade flows that may harm the EU economy. However, since the introduction of these instruments in the nineties, both the global and the European economy have been subject to major changes. That is why growth and competitiveness have become a priority of the current Commission. With that, the Commission acknowledges that the concept of EU production and EU economic interests has changed, since a large number of European companies are now producing outside the EU for import into the EU.
The Green Paper does not question the essence of trade defence instruments. It rather calls on all stakeholders, i.e. political authorities, producers, importers, exporters, consumers, academics and any other interested party to reflect on the best way for the EU to continue to apply the measures.
For that purpose, the relevant issues have been grouped into 6 themes:
- the role of trade defence instruments in a changing global economy;
- the weighting of different EU interests in trade defence investigations;
- the launch and conduct of trade defence investigations;
- the form, timing and duration of trade defence measures;
- the transparency of trade defence investigations and;
- the institutional structure of trade defence investigations.
For each theme, the Commission raises a number of questions to which all stakeholders are invited to respond by 31 March 2007. The relevant questionnaire is available from http://ec.europa.eu/trade/issues/respectrules/anti_dumping/comu061206_en.htm
All comments will be published on DG Trade’s website, unless a specific request for confidentiality is made. On 13 March, a public hearing will take place. Registrations for this event are now closed, but the hearing will be broadcasted live on the External Trade website.
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