EU mulls abolishment of "non-market economy" list

The European Union (EU) is mulling over the choice to abolish its "non-market economy" list, on which China and 14 other countries are included, and set up a new "country-neutral" method to reform its anti-dumping and anti-subsidy legislation, it was announced Wednesday.

The decision was made after the European Commission held the second orientation debate on the treatment of China in anti-dumping investigations as the 15-year-old "surrogate system" is set to expire in December.

"The colleagues have agreed to propose changes to the EU anti-dumping and anti-subsidy legislation with the introduction of a new anti-dumping methodology," said EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom in a press briefing.

"We are eliminating the existing list of non-market economy countries," Malmstrom told reporters. "This is a new method, it will be country-neutral and will be applied equally to all WTO countries (members)."

With this proposal, the EU would create an additional non-standard methodology. This new methodology would lead to approximately the same level of anti-dumping duties as the EU has today, the commissioner said.

EU officials said the new method would mark a "huge change" to the bloc's anti-dumping and anti-subsidy laws and the European Commission will have to shoulder the burden to prove there is "market distortion" in its future investigations on a case-by-case basis.

Besides China, other countries on the EU's "non-market economies" list include Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Endit