Abstract
The dispute between the EU and China regarding the trade in solar panels has been commonly explained in terms of power politics, whereby a mercantile China exploited European internal divisions to its advantage. But the trade defence case was also criticized for running against European climate policy goals. To which extent does this case illustrate a normative conflict between trade and the environment? The article replaces the dispute in the context of the trade defence procedures, according to which the EU had to decide, first, whether China’s subsidization of its PV industry was illegal, and second, whether Europe’s climate policies warranted against imposing trade defence duties. It finds that, in this case, the familiar competition between divergent European industrial interests was made worse by an important normative cleavage amongst European decision-makers, regarding the appropriate way to achieve global climate change policy goals. Simply applying the law did not settle the dispute. Instead, it plastered a political compromise emerged from a shift in the political narrative of the dispute, from emphasizing competition to emphasizing interdependence, pushing the Commission into a political compromise with China.
Highlights
Climate change has been at the forefront of the European Union (EU)-China strategic partnership for many years
Environmental NGOs claimed that the action of the EU against cheaper Chinese solar panels in the name of fair trade ran against its global climate policy goals, echoing the concern spelled out by Naomi Klein in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Climate that “our economic system and our planetary system are at war.” (Klein 2014)
2.1 The internal politics of EU’s trade defence: institutions and interests In September 2012, the European Commission announced the launch of an antidumping (AD) investigation into solar photovoltaic cells, wafers and modules imported from China
Summary
Climate change has been at the forefront of the EU-China strategic partnership for many years. Environmental NGOs claimed that the action of the EU against cheaper Chinese solar panels in the name of fair trade ran against its global climate policy goals, echoing the concern spelled out by Naomi Klein in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Climate that “our economic system and our planetary system are at war.” (Klein 2014). These environmental arguments, which questioned international trade norms and practices, did not side with either the European or the Chinese position. The final part explores how divergent interests were reconciled, by showing how the initially dominant narrative of an unfair ‘global green competition’ between ruleabiding Europe and Mercantile China gave way to an alternative narrative of ‘global green production’, according to which the EU and China shared interests for better or worse
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