Report from the Commission to the European Parliament. Tenth report. Overview of third country trade defence actions against the European Union for the year 2012

Author (Corporate)
Series Title
Series Details (2013) 217 final (22.4.13)
Publication Date 22/04/2013
Content Type ,

EU exporters remain exposed to Trade Defence Measures imposed by third countries. Such measures are in principle allowed under the WTO rules but if not properly applied, they turn into protectionist tools. To avoid resorting to protectionism was also one of the pledges leaders have taken in G20.

The EU uses Trade Defence Measures as well although they affect only a very small share of imports. Moreover, the EU is more demanding than other WTO members when it considers the imposition of measures because additional tests have to be met before such measures are adopted (so-called 'WTO pluses').

In addition to applying high standards in its own investigations, the role of the Commission is to monitor the activity of third countries when they use Trade Defence against EU exports, and to intervene if WTO rules are not respected. This is for instance done through technical interventions within the framework of on-going investigations. The ultimate possibility is resorting to WTO dispute settlement proceedings when the issues are important and no other solution can be found.

Even if the activity concerning EU exports has stabilised in the most recent years, after a steep increase of the number of investigations in 2008-2009, cases are becoming more complex and new users of the instruments have appeared in the last years. This has required careful monitoring and ever increasing activity in 2012.

This report describes overall trends, the problems identified and results achieved in 2012. It also gives in the annex a detailed analysis of trends and specific cases of the most important users of the instrument.

Source Link Link to Main Source http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2013:217:FIN
Related Links
EUR-Lex: COM(2013)217: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:217:FIN
EUR-Lex: SWD(2013)140: Annexes http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2013:140:FIN

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