‘We must defend ourselves against unfair practices’
The European Commission announces that it will investigate electric cars that come from China and are flooding the European market in increasing numbers. Why Chinese cars? According to the European Commission, the prices of Chinese electric cars are being kept artificially low by Chinese subsidies and there is not much to say about that.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announces in the annual European equivalent of the Speech from the Throne that the European Commission will investigate how Chinese electric cars compete unfairly with EVs made from non-Chinese products. Von der Leyen says the global market – and the European one – is being flooded with cheaper electric cars from China. The prices of those cars”[…] are kept artificially low by enormous state subsidies.” According to Von der Leyen, there is unfair competition and this distorts the European market. The committee chairman says that such practices are “not accepted within Europe and therefore not from outside.” The result? The European Commission will launch a so-called anti-subsidy investigation into electric cars coming from China. “Europe is open to competition. Not for a race to the bottom. We must defend ourselves against unfair practices,” Von der Leyen concludes. It is not yet possible to say to what extent measures will ultimately be taken against electric cars from China.
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