Say No to Market Economy Status for China

We are staunch advocates for free and fair trade. Dumped steel imports from China, volumes of which have doubled in 18 months, are flooding the EU market and directly causing irreversible closures and job losses across the EU steel sector. China has domestic steel overcapacity of around 400 million tonnes, almost three times the total EU steel demand of 155 million tonnes. This overcapacity has arisen as a result of persistent state intervention in the Chinese economy. China is quite simply not a market economy. It does not yet meet 4 out of the 5 EU criteria to be considered as such. To prematurely grant MES when China meets neither the EU criteria nor its WTO obligations would be economic and political folly. Parallel to the issue of MES are the effects of dumping on the objectives of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). Dumped products from China have much larger environmental footprint – about 50% greater – than equivalents produced in the EU. They thereby undermine the objectives of the EU ETS to reduce CO2 emissions. The current Commission proposal on the EU ETS post 2020 must therefore guarantee that it does not lead to costs which are not borne by our global competitors, at least at the level of the most efficient plants in Europe. According to a recent study, the proposed EU ETS reform may cost the steel industry alone about €34 billion. Say no to Market Economy Status for China!