The European Union applied tariffs on three groups of Chinese
solar-panel makers that have been exempted from the levies, potentially
reviving tensions in the EU’s biggest trade case of its kind. The three producer groups, which include Canadian Solar Inc.
subsidiaries, breached the terms of a price-floor accord that
underpinned the exemption, the European Commission said. The ET Solar
and ReneSola groups are the other two accused by the commission of
violating the agreement to respect a minimum selling price in Europe.
The Brussels-based commission, the 28-nation EU’s executive arm, also
said that the price pact, known as an undertaking, is too difficult to
monitor in the case of the three groups. “The findings of breaches of the undertaking and its impracticability
established for Canadian Solar, ET Solar and ReneSola require the
withdrawal of the acceptances of the undertaking for those three
exporting producers,” the commission said on Friday in the EU’s Official
Journal.
The decision, which will take effect on Saturday, exposes weaknesses
in an EU-China agreement in late 2013 to curb European imports of
Chinese solar panels after the commission concluded that they unfairly
undercut producers in Europe such as Solarworld AG.
The accord set a minimum price and a volume limit on European imports
from China of the renewable-energy technology until the end of 2015.
Chinese manufacturers that opted to take part in the pact are spared EU
tariffs meant to counter alleged below-cost sales, a practice known as
dumping, and subsidies. The Canadian Solar and ET groups each face an anti-dumping duty of
43.1 percent and an anti-subsidy levy of 6.4 percent. The ReneSola group
faces an anti-dumping duty of 43.1 percent and an anti-subsidy levy of
4.6 percent.
Copyright 2015 Bloomberg
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/news/2015/06/three-chinese-solar-panel-groups-lose-exemption-from-eu-tariffs.html