EU chief: No question of protectionism and closing market in relations with China

The EU doesn’t intend to enter into a trade war with China, the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said in an interview with the Financial Times.

"Let’s say we share some of the concerns of our American counterparts. [But] our approach is different. The Americans have just applied blanket tariffs,” she told the FT. "We want competition, we want to trade together, but we want it to be fair and by the rules.”

"We see China, for example . . . producing massive overcapacity with artificially cheap products and flooding our market, and our companies having problems to access the Chinese market under fair conditions,” she added. "And we see the topic of forced technology transfer. These are topics that are of concern.”

Von der Leyen said she expected the EU probe announced last September would conclude that Chinese electric vehicles have benefited from "excessive production subsidies”, and that the response would be "that the level of duties would correspond to the level of damage done”.

"So it’s a more differentiated, targeted approach [than the US] . . . we want to signal, it’s not about closing the market or protectionism,” she added. "We want to de-risk, not decouple [from China]. And now we’re developing the toolbox.”

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