The European Commission, which has responsibility in the EU for the role now carried out in the UK by the Trades Remedies Authority (TRA), has published its 2023 report on EU trade defence activities.
Available HERE, the report explains that 182 trade defence measures were in place in the Union at the end of 2023, including 156 anti-dumping measures, 25 anti-subsidy measures and one safeguard measure.
Arguing that this demonstrates its resolve to robustly deal with rising instances of unfair trade, the Commission notes that twice as many new investigations were launched in 2023 compared with the previous year and represents nearly a 40% increase compared to 2018, when there were 133 measures in place.
Industrial sectors defended by the defences put in place include strategic ones such as wind energy, solar glass and optic fibres, with a total of 500,000 direct jobs being protected by these measures.
Also covered are numerous sectors with a significant presence of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) — ceramics and bicycles for example — which are, the Commission notes, vulnerable to unfair trading practices.
It is particularly concerned with the need to protect green tech sectors from unfair trade which is why it is pursuing an anti-subsidy investigation into battery electric vehicles from China.
The report also highlights the increased need to tackle evasion by economic operators, with exporters attempting to by-pass EU measures by diverting goods through a third country (including imports of biodiesel from Indonesia via China and the UK).
In 2023 alone, four out of 12 new investigations took place into suspected cases of circumvention resulting in the extension of measures to countries other than the original exporter.
