The EU will impose a huge hike in import duties on Chinese made EVs at the start of next month. The move will see tariffs as high as 45 percent on EVs made in China.
10 of the 27 EU member states backed the plan and the move has sparked fear of a trade war. Peter Oliver reports from Berlin with talks to find a happier solution.
10 of the 27 EU member states backed the plan and the move has sparked fear of a trade war. Peter Oliver reports from Berlin with talks to find a happier solution.
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00:00Now, there's still a lot of reaction to the EU vote to impose heavy tariffs on electric vehicles from China.
00:07On Friday, the 27-member trading bloc decided in favour of those taxes against China,
00:13though of course it was a strongly divided vote.
00:15The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade has expressed their opposition to those tariffs.
00:21The council says an EU investigation into alleged subsidies was flawed.
00:26Peter Oliver has the story.
00:29The tariffs are approved and will come into force at the beginning of next month.
00:33However, it's not quite a done deal just yet.
00:36Talks will continue and there are those in EU member states, like here in Germany,
00:41that hope that a solution other than punitive tariffs can be reached.
00:45In fact, there was a similar message from the EU Commission as they made the announcement of the new duties.
00:52The reason we continue negotiating and negotiating in good faith
00:57and in a meaningful, constructive way with our Chinese counterparts
01:02is precisely because we want to find a solution. We're open to finding a solution.
01:06As it stands, additional duties will be added on a sliding scale
01:10based on how the EU Commission deems the Chinese EV manufacturers cooperated with their investigation.
01:17BYD will face an additional 17% on top of the 10% charged on all EVs coming from outside the bloc,
01:25with some seeing far higher duties imposed.
01:28There wasn't a majority in support of the tariffs, 10 out of 27,
01:33but blocking them would have required 15 nations or 65% to vote against.
01:38As it was, 5 voted against and the rest abstained, a sign that there's still work to be done.
01:45Because this is an ongoing process and we will sit again in a month or in two months
01:51and discuss the same questions again, because this is a process about recalibration,
01:57the benefits and costs of open markets and forms of protectionism.
02:02China's Commerce Ministry slammed the tariffs, calling them unfair, illegal and unreasonable.
02:08However, China remains committed to further talks in hope of finding a solution.
02:13The German car manufacturing giants are concerned that Beijing could introduce reciprocal tariffs
02:18on their products going into China, a huge market for them, worth over $29 billion last year.
02:25Mercedes, VW and BMW have all slammed these EU tariffs and said they hope a compromise can be found.
02:34Peter Oliver, CGTN, Berlin.
02:37Yeah, we understand those talks will continue on Monday to prevent those tariffs kicking in
02:43and if they do kick in, it'll be by the end of October.