EU Wasn't Pressured to Launch CV Duty Probe on Chinese EV Batteries, Official Says

The French government didn't pressure the European Commission to launch the countervailing duty investigation on electric vehicle batteries from China announced in October (see 2310040012), said Martin Lukas, who heads the commission's trade defense directorate. Lukas, speaking on the commission’s Trade-Off podcast released Nov. 28, said the commission had been studying China’s increasing share of the EU’s EV battery market and said the investigation wasn’t brought because of urging from any single EU member state, despite some media reports.

“There have been news reports that we’ve been doing this at the instigation of one member state, but nothing can be further from the truth,” Lukas said. “Believe me, I was there. That's not what happened.”

Lukas said the commission began the investigation because it didn’t want EU electric vehicle companies to be pushed out of their own industry, similar to what happened to Europe’s solar panel industry about 10 years ago. At one point, European companies had a market share of around 80% to 90% of its solar industry, but over time, the “Chinese share of the European market increased and increased and increased.”

The commission brought antidumping and countervailing duty cases against those Chinese imports, but “unfortunately with hindsight, it was too late,” he said. “There was already a big market share of Chinese solar panels out there, and there were certain vested interests to actually keep those imports there. And the result was that our trade defense measures were phased out very quickly.”

Lukas said the commission has begun the “first phase” of the investigation, which has so far included sending questionnaires to companies. “We are waiting for these questionnaires to return to us and we will then analyze them,” he said.