China voices concern over EU discrimination against its companies

China is concerned about the European Union’s measures targeting its industry and companies, which it considers discriminatory. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said this today in response to Tuesday’s announcement that the EU would investigate subsidies received by Chinese manufacturers of wind turbines supplied to Europe.

„The outside world is concerned about the growing trend towards protectionism in the EU,“ the spokesperson said.

She also called on the EU to comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and market principles, Reuters reported.

European Commission Executive Vice-President for Competition Margrethe Vestager announced on Tuesday that the European Commission (EC) had launched an investigation into Chinese suppliers of wind turbines for wind farms in the European Union over suspected excessive use of state subsidies. The investigation will be conducted under the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation, which has allowed the EC since July 2023 to assess whether such support enables companies to submit excessively advantageous bids in public tenders.

The investigation is the latest step in efforts by the EU and the US to protect their companies from what they see as unfair competition from state-subsidised imports of clean technologies from China. Last week, the EC began examining whether Chinese bidders had made excessive use of subsidies in their bids for a solar park in Romania. Since last year, the EC has also been investigating for the same reason whether to impose tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles.

Most wind turbines installed in the EU were manufactured within the bloc, but Chinese manufacturers are rapidly building their position in the global market, where they held around a two-thirds share in 2022. In the case of solar panels, Chinese manufacturers hold a more than 90 percent share of the EU market.

According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), China has the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturing capacity. Chinese turbine prices are around 20 percent lower than those of competing US and European products, according to BloombergNEF.