Nathalie Loiseau, Renew MEP, president of the security and defense subcommittee of the European Parliament, was the guest of franceinfo on Wednesday.
“It’s not a trade war, it’s simply about being respected,” reacted Wednesday September 13 on franceinfo Nathalie Loiseau, Renew MEP, president of the security and defense subcommittee of the European Parliament. She welcomes the announcement by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen of the opening of an investigation into Chinese subsidies for electric cars, a gesture welcomed by EU manufacturers who denounce unfair competition. Ursula von der Leyen delivered her final State of the Union speech this Thursday.
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“We want to be able to develop electric vehicles in Europe without being blackballed by China which says that it is playing by market rules. This is not true, criticizes Nathalie Loiseau. We are finally moving beyond the days of naivety towards China and I think that is a very good thing. It was a French request, the European Commission heard it. It’s a great victory.”
‘”Being respected is essential”
“If being competitive means subsidizing your industry like China does, it’s false competition,” continues Nathalie Loiseau. The idea, according to her, “it’s to carry out an anti-dumping procedure, to tell them: we want the truth about the prices.” Nathalie Loiseau cites the example of solar panels. “At the time, Europe said that it was free and undistorted competition: if you can buy cheap solar panels in China, so much the better. As a result, we completely let this European skill slip away . Do we want to do the same thing on electric cars, which we know how important it is?”
It is not certain that Germany wants to start a standoff with the Chinese, while Berlin is seeing its exports to China fall, but for Nathalie Loiseau, “the Commission [européenne] has made its decision, it launches its procedure” and Ursula von der Leyen, “She’s someone who thinks about the interests of all Europeans. In that regard, she did well.” “We have seen our industry relocate to Asia, to China for decades, we have lost jobs, skills in technological innovation, this is not protectionism, being respected is essential, it “is what we expect from Europe”.