Brussels poised to offer Beijing reprieve in solar panel dispute

Brussels poised to offer Beijing reprieve in solar panel dispute The European Commission is poised to offer Beijing a temporary reprieve from swingeing sanctions against imports of Chinese solar panels in an attempt to avoid a looming trade war.
Karel De Gucht, the EU’s trade chief, has proposed to his colleagues that Brussels lower the 47 per cent punitive tariffs it agreed last month to just 11 per cent. But that lower rate would last only two months, until early August, and would revert to 47 per cent if China does not respond to EU allegations that it is selling the solar panels in Europe for below cost, a tactic known as “dumping”.
The solar panel case, the biggest the EU has ever brought in terms of the size of the market, has become the most contentious issue in a growing bilateral fight between Brussels and Beijing over whether China is systematically using its tools of state power to illegally break into the European market.

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