Decision-Making in EU Trade Defence Cases After Lisbon: An Institutional Anomaly Addressed?

Abstract

The Lisbon Treaty has led to the first major change in trade defence decision making since the adoption of the last consolidated anti-dumping and anti-subsidy regulations in 1994, and arguably even since the inception of the trade defence regulations in 1968. So far, whilst the Commission was in charge of the administrative investigation procedure, the Council adopted the Regulations imposing, amending or prolonging duties on the basis of a Commission proposal. In practice, only the Commission was, having conducted the investigation, privy to all the facts justifying proposed measure. The Council essentially had at its disposal only the duly motivated, but necessarily summarised, Commission proposal on which to base its decision to adopt (or not) the Commission proposal. Since the coming into effect of Regulation (EU) N° 37/2014 on 20. February 2014,definitive trade defence measures are adopted by the Commission.