EU rejects price offer from Chinese EV producers as talks enter final stretch
The European Commission has formally rejected an offer submitted by Chinese manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs) to close the price gap between them and EU competitors, a wide gap that Brussels argues is the direct result of vast subsidies pumped by Beijing into the lucrative sector.
Price undertakings are a trade tool that companies can use to increase the price and control the volumes of their exports to avoid antisubsidy tariffs. These are precisely the kinds of duties that Chinamade EVs might soon face when entering the bloc.
"I can confirm that the Commission has thoroughly reviewed these offers based on World Trade Organization and EU anti-subsidy rules," a Commission spokesperson said on Thursday.
"Our review focussed on whether these offers would eliminate the injurious effects of the subsidies identified in our investigations and whether these price undertakings could be ef fectively monitored and enforced. The Commission has concluded that none of the offers met these requirements."
At the end of a months-long investigation, the Commission found public money spread across the entire supply chain of the Chinese EV sector, putting European firms at risk of suffering unsustainable economic losses. The executive consequently proposed additional duties, ranging from 7.8% to 35.3%, according to the brand and their level of cooperation with the investigation, that will come on top of the existing 10% rate. The topup is supposed to ensure fairer competition and close the price gap between EU and Chinese manufacturers.
BYD, Geely and SAIC are among those facing steeper tariffs. The price undertakings they submitted were meant to placate the Commission's concerns and prevent the measures. The rejection of the offer indicates how entrenched and extensive the subsidisation is inside China and suggests the solution, if any, will be found at the political level. Negotiations between the two sides have entered the final stretch ahead of a make-or-break vote by member states to make the tariffs permanent for five years. The date for the vote has not been announced yet but it could happen as early as this month.
Valdis Dombrovskis, the Commission's executive vice president in charge of trade relations, is scheduled to meet his counterpart, Wang Wentao, China's minister of commerce, on 19 September in Brussels, a sign of intensifying talks.
Divide-and-conquer fears
The executive's behind-the-scenes efforts suffered a blow this week after Spanish Prime Min ister Pedro Sánchez publically called on the Commission and member states to "reconsider" the proposed tariffs
on China-made EVs.
The remarks caught Brussels by complete surprise: until then,
Spain was considered supportive of the anti-subsidy measures, having voted in favour during a nonbinding consultation in July.
"We need to reconsider all of us, not only the member states but also the Commission, our position towards this movement," Sánchez said in Shanghai, the last stop of his official four-day visit to China. "As I said before, we don't need another war, in this case, a trade war. We need to build bridges between the European Union and China," he went on.
"And from Spain, what we will do is to be constructive and to try to find a solution, a compromise, between China and the European Commission. If you ask me, I will answer that we're reconsidering our position."
Hours later, a spokesperson of the German government welcomed Sánchez's U-turn, saying that "the direction of travel is one that we share." Germany, a world-leading automaker, is under pressure from domestic industry to derail the additional tariffs.
Sánchez's explicit reservations, voiced in Shanghai after having sealed a €1- billion deal with a Chinese company to build an electrolyser plant in Spain, immediately made headlines and raised fears of Beijing stepping up its political meddling.
Last year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a stark warning about China's "divide-and-conquer tactics" and urged member states to close ranks, maintain unity and face together the multiple challenges posed by the Communist Party.
Asked if Sánchez's about-face represented the result of these "divide-and-conquer" tactics, the Commission refused to comment and said talks were the priority. "The European Commission's focus, at the present time, is fulfilling the next procedural steps in our investigation (and) remaining open to finding a negotiated solution with the Chinese authorities," the spokesperson said.
"Any such solution must adequately address the injurious effects of the illegal subsidies we identified in our anti-subsidy investigation."
Stopping the tariffs from becoming permanent will require a qualified majority against the proposal, that is 15 countries representing at least 65% of the bloc's population. Given Spain's weight, Sánchez's change of mind could re-balance the equation.
"internes en médecine", are medical students who have completed their sixth year of study out of 12. They work full-time at a hospital or in another medical institution under the supervision of a senior while continuing their studies.
"We are all very scared (...) The work in hospitals is very difficult, it is very demanding mentally and physically for junior doctors," said Marie, who is finishing her sixth year of medical studies. "And now there will be fewer of us in the autumn while the workload won't diminish."
According to the government, the number of positions was reduced because the number of candidates who took part in the competitive entry exams to win the placements also fell.
The figures have raised eyebrows among trade unions, however. "Every year, there is an adaptation of the position openings depending on the number of junior doctors who run," said Dr Agnès Ricard Hibon, spokesperson for the trade union SAMU Urgences de
France. "Except that in this case, there have been way more people redoing the year."
Medical specialisations will suffer to different degrees: general medicine and ophthalmology positions are due to fall by 18%, while there will be 15% fewer openings in emergency medicine. "There are some disciplines like plastic surgery, which are more impacted. Others are preserved such as pediatrics or pediatric surgery because there is a huge need", Hibon said.
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Yet some students claim many of their classmates chose to repeat their year and failed their exams on purpose, as they were the first cohort to sit the placement entry exams which were brought in by a contested medical studies reform in 2020. They claimed they didn't want to be a "crash test" cohort. Nevertheless, Hibon said the decrease in the number of junior doctors shouldn't have a ma jor impact on hospitals: "They are systematically supervised by senior doctors. They are not the ones who run the services," she said.
On the other hand, some students have launched a petition online asking for the reopening of junior doctor positions, which received more than 57,000 signatures as of September.
The petition states that the multiple academic reforms and changes in the way they are assessed and graded negatively affected their results and mental health.
As a result, around 1,000 students chose to repeat their fourth and fifth year and 400 other students failed the competitive exam, the petition claims, adding that certain positions have also become more competitive.
"A student who wants to carry out a placement in Digestive Surgery in Paris must be ranked among the top 23% of his class, compared with 35% last year", the petition says.
It adds that consequently, many students will be compelled to choose a dis cipline which is easier to get into but they may not necessarily be in vested in.
Medical student Marie warns some students would rather complete their studies abroad than give up on their ambitions.
She said she sees daily distress messages on Facebook support groups asking for advice on how fellow medical students can pursue their studies in Switzerland or Belgium.
To compensate, France might have to import foreign doctors in the opposite direction. "There may be a few more open positions for foreign practitioners who want to come and train in France," Hibon said.
However, French medical students see such a solution as unfair, both to them and the foreign doctors who may come in. "Foreign doctors are also being fooled because they are less paid than us, so they are also being exploited," Marie said. More generally, the debate is taking place at a time when the whole medical sector in France is suffering from deteriorating mental health and working conditions - exhaustion, overtime, a lack of supervision, competition, important responsibilities and low wages - exacerbated by the COVID19 pandemic.
All of these challenges have been bubbling for years across Europe, yet there may be hope on the horizon for the continent's hospitals by way of the Bucharest Declaration on the health and care workforce, which WHO Europe representatives adopted in 2023. The declaration calls for political action to improve the recruitment and retention of health and care workers, improve health workforce supply mechanisms, optimise the workforce's performance and increase public investment in workforce education.
Yet it remains to be seen how countries will implement the declaration in practice, and regardless, the stakes are high: a doctor struggling with deteriorating working conditions will surely negatively impact the quality of care.
"When a caregiver is mistreated, we know 10 patients are mistreated after," Marie said.