BRUSSELS, July 12: The European Commission, threatening the United States with sanctions in a trade dispute, said on Friday that Washington must allow more EU steel into its market without heavy new import duties.
Diplomats said the commission would make a recommendation to a July 22 meeting of EU foreign ministers on whether to go ahead with threatened retaliation of more than $300 million on a wide range of US goods.
The 15-nation EU has said it would hold back from sanctions if Washington gave it wide exemptions from the duties, imposed by President George W. Bush in March. The United States announced a sprinkling of fresh exemptions on Thursday.
“We do welcome the exclusions (from the duties) that we had yesterday. We are still in the process of examining what is the exact coverage,” Commission spokeswoman Arantza Gonzalez Laya told a news conference.
“The message to the US would be that it is a step in the right direction. However, we do not think these exclusions are enough. We have to keep walking in that direction,” she said.
“We have to continue putting pressure on our US counterparts to do more meaningful exclusions,” she said.
Steel has added to a series of disputes clouding transatlantic trade ties just as the EU and United States are supposed to be leading global trade liberalization talks.
Along with other nations, the EU has complained to the World Trade Organization over the steel duties, but a ruling is not expected from the global trade body until next year.
Diplomats said the Commission told trade officials from EU member states in Copenhagen it was not yet ready to make any decision on whether or not to go ahead with sanctions.
“The Commission is still analyzing the facts in terms of what we have got so far.” They said they were not ready to make a proposal for action or inaction,” said one EU official.
The Commission has twice extended its deadline for a decision on retaliation. The EU was initially due to decide in mid-June but postponed it until July 19. It has now shifted that date to July 22 and hinted it could delay action still further.
The Commission has said sanctions would take effect from August 1 unless it was encouraged by the exemptions granted, in which case a decision would be pushed back to October.
The EU has also said it wants compensation for the steel duties in the form of lower tariffs on other products, although these talks seem to have stalled.
Washington says the steel duties are needed to defend an ailing US industry from imports. It contends they are legal under world trade rules.—Reuters