European biodiesel producers want EU to keep saying no to Argentine and Indonesian imports

August 1, 2017 |

In Belgium, EU member states are to decide on the European Commission’s proposal to radically lower the antidumping duties on Argentinian and Indonesian biodiesel imports. The European biodiesel industry warns of the dramatic impact that this decision may have on 120,000 jobs and on the efficiency of the overall future of EU trade defense. It is critical for the EU and national authorities to realize that, if approved, the current commission proposal would bring to an end any European biodiesel production.

The European Commission intends to bring the EU antidumping duties on Argentinian biodiesel imports in conformity with the October 2016 World Trade Organization Appellate Body’s report by Aug. 10. At the beginning of July, the commission issued a general disclosure document, according to which it plans to bring the antidumping duties down to provisional levels or even lower.

The extremely low level of new proposed duties will be unable to counter the distortive impact of dumping. Additionally, since the result of the WTO panel on EU duties against Indonesia is still uncertain, it appears as completely illogical that the commission already intends to drop the existing measures on Indonesian imports. The negative economic impact would be high, thousands of jobs (120,000, mostly in related EU agricultural activities) would be lost, for no convincing reason.

Category: Policy

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