In the early morning of April 24, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in the European Union disclosed a news that the previous morning, the European Union had conducted a "surprise inspection" of the offices of a Chinese company in Poland and the Netherlands without any prior notice, which was also translated as a "dawn raid".
It is understood that the Chinese company, which is targeted by the European Union, is engaged in the manufacture of surveillance equipment, and the European Commission launched a surprise investigation against it under the "Foreign Subsidies Regulations" on the grounds that "the company may have received foreign subsidies".
However, even so, it is unreasonable for the EU to enter the company's office premises, control employees' mobile phones and the company's information equipment, and require the company to inspect its documents and obtain relevant data without prior notice.
European Commission building
Subsequently, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in the EU also expressed serious concern about this matter, urging the EU side not to abuse the investigative tools, and even the investigation should be carried out through reasonable means, this kind of "raid" without notice has not only affected Chinese companies, but also sent a negative signal to all foreign companies operating in Europe.
Considering that the European Parliament elections are approaching, the European Commission has recently intensively "moved" against China, in addition to this raid on Chinese companies, on the 24th, the European Commission was also revealed to plan to launch an "international procurement tool" for the first time on the bidding of European companies in China. Prior to this, the EU had already taken action against China's new energy vehicle industry.
In the face of China's opposition, the EU has forced a countervailing investigation into Chinese electric vehicles, but this has put the EU in a bigger dilemma, seeing that the climate goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 is getting closer and closer, and the EU must vigorously develop clean energy if it wants to implement its plan to ban the sale of gasoline vehicles from 2035.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
Due to the high price of electric vehicles in Europe, electric vehicles from Chinese counterparts can greatly help Europe achieve its emission reduction goals as soon as possible, which plays an important role in Europe's energy transition.
However, some European politicians are entangled in the issue of "getting rid of China's dependence", not only refusing to learn from China's advanced experience of electric vehicles, but also encouraging the EU to pass more laws and regulations, in an attempt to prevent Chinese electric vehicles from entering the European market. It can be said that for the sake of selfish political interests, ignoring Europe's development, it has also affected the global efforts to deal with the climate problem.
In this regard, China has made solemn representations to Europe, pointing out that almost all of the countervailing investigations launched by Europe so far are aimed at China's new energy industry, which will not only interfere with the normal investment and operation between Chinese and European enterprises, but also interfere with the process of global green transformation.
New energy vehicles
Moreover, in the course of the EU's investigation of Chinese companies, the procedural standards are not open and transparent, and they completely distort the definition of so-called "unfair subsidies", which is obviously a trade protectionist practice under the banner of "ensuring fair competition", and China firmly opposes such practices.
In fact, it is not difficult to find that many of the EU's recent actions are very synchronous with the United States, just a few days ago, the United States announced the launch of a "301" investigation into China's shipbuilding industry on the grounds of the so-called "unfair subsidies", and even US President Biden personally said that he would impose three times tariffs on China's steel and aluminum products.
Now the EU also wants to impose tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China, and will decide whether to implement the punitive measures of the tariffs based on the results of the countervailing investigation after the conclusion of the investigation.
US-European relations
The German Association of the Automotive Industry recently issued a warning, expressing its firm opposition to the EU's plan to impose additional tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, and reminding that this move may trigger trade frictions and ultimately damage the EU's own interests.
This shows that there are still some people in Europe who understand that the EU's current trade protectionist behavior cannot really safeguard the economic interests of European enterprises, but may cause greater losses.
The essence of trade is equality, reciprocity, mutual benefit and win-win results, and China-EU economic and trade exchanges have also pursued this principle for a long time. If the EU insists on obstructing and interfering with the normal investment exchanges between enterprises of the two countries through administrative means, it will only hurt the enthusiasm of foreign investors and make the European market unattractive.
China and the EU have close economic and trade exchanges
Therefore, many of the EU's current practices seem to be winning, but in fact they have lost long-term development, and if they continue to be implemented, they will only cause more serious losses to European interests.