(Reuters) – Germany wants to prevent the European Union’s new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from coming into force or at least soften them, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has previously warned that the tariffs could hurt global trade and has talked up the prospects of the EU holding talks with Beijing towards an ‘amicable’ solution by early July.
Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck travels to China next week as part of efforts to reach a solution.
Europe’s auto industry had warned against imposing the tariffs, with German carmakers the most exposed to any counter moves as almost a third of their sales came from China in 2023, trade data shows.
“From our point of view, it would be very desirable if we could reach an amicable solution. We don’t need further trade barriers, we need to facilitate global trade,” Scholz’s spokesperson told a briefing earlier this week.
“At the same time, however, it must remain and become fair. In this respect, the EU Commission and the Chinese side must now discuss this with each other. We also encourage everyone who should take part in these talks to do so.”
In a sign of further escalation, Chinese firms have now formally applied for an anti-dumping probe into pork imports from the EU, the state-backed Global Times reported.
(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru and Andreas Rinke in Berlin; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Kim Coghill and Susan Fenton)
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