After a week of technical negotiations in China, the two sides said that they had made some progress in reducing or withdrawing “the EU’s tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.”
The European Commission said the negotiations had made “technical progress,” and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce agreed in a separate statement. Previously, both the EU and China had pointed out that the two sides still had major differences on how to resolve the EU’s so-called unfair subsidies for Chinese electric vehicles.
China and the EU have been seeking to reach an agreement on so-called price commitments, a complex mechanism to control the price and quantity of automobile exports, designed to replace anti-subsidy tariffs.
On November 8, the EU reiterated that under World Trade Organization rules, separate agreements can be reached between automakers and the EU. But China hopes to reach a general agreement. This has become one of the obstacles in the negotiations. At that time, China and the EU said they would continue to negotiate at the technical level.