The European Steel Association (EUROFER) has again called for EU policy makers to more rigorously, transparently and comprehensively assess what granting market economy status to China would do to jobs, growth and investment prospects in the EU, at a conference on Market Economy Status for China (MES) in the European Parliament (EP).
At the conference, EUROFER stated that, were MES to be granted, the antidumping measures that safeguard hundreds of thousands of EU jobs against China’s unfair competition across a range of strategic EU industries would become ineffective. The EU’s other trade defense measures are either inoperative or simply insufficient to defend against the rising tide of dumped Chinese products, particularly steel. MES would worsen already dire market conditions caused by China’s dumping of steel in the EU, and would threaten the entirety of the 330,000 jobs in the European steel sector, EUROFER said.
“China is placing political pressure on national and EU policy makers to prematurely grant it the status of a market economy. The country is arguing that its WTO protocol assures it MES by the end of 2016. However, the WTO protocol was established under the presumption that China would make sufficient progress towards becoming a market economy; progress that it has studiously failed to implement,” said Axel Eggert, EUROFER director general.