25 September 2024 – The old European Commission, which is still in office, presented its Market Protection Report for 2023 yesterday, Wednesday. The report makes it all too clear that the Von der Leyen I Commission is continuing its inflation-fueling and job-destroying protectionism and has learned nothing from the years 2021 to 2023. In addition, the Commission is saying goodbye with petty vulgarities and a possible violation of EU law.
EU Market Protection Report 2023 – How much further will the madness go?
The EU Commission presented its annual market protection report on September 24. The report for 2023 once again shows the protectionist attitude of the old and current EU Commission and the Directorate-General for Trade.
More and more market protection measures
Since 2019, the Von der Leyen Commission has increased the number of market protection measures by 42 individual measures. An increase of a whopping 30% and a further example of how the Commission’s misguided market protection policy has played a major role in the runaway inflation of recent years and continues to do so.
Tariffs on intermediate goods harm the domestic economy
Tariffs on intermediate goods in particular, such as steel and aluminium, have been considered harmful to national economies for years – a fact that has been established not only by academics, but also by the European Central Bank, the German Bundesbank and the US Federal Reserve.
Contradictions in the Commission’s figures
However, the figures presented for 2023 on the jobs directly protected by market protection measures in the European Union differ significantly from the data in older reports.
“The number of EU jobs protected by these measures also increased dramatically, from 365,000 in 2018 to almost 500,000 direct jobs at the end of 2023.”
Source: 2023 Report on EU Trade Defense Activities, 24 September 2024
“The EU shields 320,000 direct jobs across Europe from unfair foreign competition through its trade defense measures, according to a report out today.”
Source: 2018 Report on EU Trade Defense Activities, 28 March 2019
Is the Commission making a mockery of its inefficiency?
This could give the impression that Brussels has apparently once again calculated the figures for itself and it remains more than questionable whether it has corrected them downwards to take account of the United Kingdom leaving the Union. The Commission had already claimed for 2022 that “almost half a million manufacturing jobs in the EU are protected, in sectors such as steel, aluminum, chemicals and ceramics” – this lack of transparency in the figures and also that there are no more significant gains to be seen here, despite more and more market protection measures.
It should also be noted that the Commission does not publish any figures on the companies destroyed or jobs lost in the EU as a result of its market protection measures.
Commission wants to register imports of all products subject to trade defense investigations
As a nasty little parting gift from the outgoing Commission, the EU also announced yesterday:
“The European Commission has today decided to register all imports of products subject to anti-dumping or anti-subsidy investigations, including ongoing investigations where no provisional findings have yet been made.”
Source: Commission to register imports of all products under trade defence investigations in bid to fight unfair competition, 24 September 2024
Previously, this was only permitted upon explicit request and thus actually constitutes a violation of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 8, 2016 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Union. In the press release on this, the Commission is obviously silent, as the sentence “Registration shall be introduced by Commission regulation.” simply remains unmentioned.
“As of the initiation of the investigation and having informed the Member States in due time, the Commission may direct the customs authorities to take the appropriate steps to register imports, so that measures may subsequently be applied against those imports from the date of such registration. Imports shall be made subject to registration following a request, from the Union industry, which contains sufficient evidence to justify such action. Imports may also be made subject to registration on the Commission’s own initiative. Registration shall be introduced by Commission regulation. Such regulation shall specify the purpose of the action and, if appropriate, the estimated amount of possible future liability. Imports shall not be made subject to registration for a period longer than nine months.”
Source: Article 14 (5), Regulation (EU) 2016/1036 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Union (codification)
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