Shannon Brandao
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"FT [excerpt]: The #EU has learnt its lesson on #China, according to former European #trade commissioner Karel De Gucht.
The bloc is ramping up pressure on Beijing over its ballooning bilateral trade deficit, and, De Gucht said, its policy must be influenced by the outcome of a previous bout of trade tensions.
Back in 2013, De Gucht was investigating alleged Chinese #subsidies for #solarpanel production.
The Belgian commissioner was dining with his wife when he got a call from his then-boss, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso.
'I just had [then-Chinese premier] Li Keqiang on the line. He is yelling at me, he is very, very mad,' Barroso told him.
'OK. Then we should continue with what we are doing,' De Gucht replied.
But in retrospect, the resulting #antidumping duties imposed in June 2013 were insufficient to save #Europe’s solar panel manufacturing sector, De Gucht said.
'We were not hard enough. We were not quick enough. And by that time there were no European producers any more,' he told the Financial Times in an interview."
#news #geopolitics