Ben Pawlowski
SPANISH prime minister Pedro Sanchez has called on the EU to ‘reconsider’ its position on tariffs of Chinese goods in an attempt to ease a long-running trade dispute between President Xi Jinping and the European bloc.
The comments came following Sanchez’s second visit to Beijing in 18 months, where he met with the Chinese premier to discuss boosting exports, such as electric vehicles and pork.
President Xi urged Sanchez to play a ‘constructive role’ in revising strained diplomatic and economic relations between China and the EU, and suggested that commercial ties between his nation and Spain could be deepened, especially with regards to sectors including AI, digital economy and new energy.
Speaking at a press conference near Shanghai, the Socialist prime minister said: “I have to be blunt and frank…I think we need to reconsider, all of us, not only member states, but also the European Commission, our position towards this movement”.
“We don’t need another war, in this case a trade war”, he added.
In particular, Sanchez suggested that the EU should move to eliminate tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
Last year, the EU opened an investigation into alleged unfair subsidies within the Chinese EV industry.
They were concerned that cheap Chinese EVs would undercut domestically-manufactured vehicles, and have proposed to boost tariffs by 37.6%, mirroring the protective economic position taken by the US.
In return, China has launched a series of countermeasures, including against European pork, which constitutes a significant proportion of Spanish exports.
Last year, China imported €1.5 billion of pork products from Spain, with Spanish officials fearful that a tit-for-tat trade war would see exports slump.
