The European Commission on Tuesday announced an investigation into Chinese wind turbine suppliers to determine whether foreign subsidies give them an unfair advantage in the European market.
European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said on Tuesday that conditions for the development of wind farms in Spain, Greece, France, Romania and Bulgaria would be checked.
Vestager said the EU needs a more systematic and specific investigation method, rather than a game similar to “whack-a-mole”.
“We need to act before it’s too late,” she said.
Referring to China’s dominance of the European solar panel market, Vestager added: “We cannot afford to see what happened with solar panels happen again with electric cars, wind energy or important chips.”
“The result is that today less than 3% of the solar panels installed in the EU are produced in Europe,” Vestager said.
She explained that the investigations “are not intended to limit China’s success. They are intended to restore fairness in our economic relationship.”
The investigation falls within the scope of the Foreign Subsidy Regulations 2023, which from last year allowed for the assessment of whether foreign subsidies allow companies to submit overly favorable public offers.
Last week, two other investigations assessed whether Chinese public bidders for solar power parks in Romania benefited too much from subsidies.
Another investigation into subsidies was launched in October last year against Chinese electric car makers, amid suspicions that subsidies allowed the companies to maintain low prices and gain an unfair advantage in the market.
China has previously called Western concerns about overcapacity caused by subsidies for electric vehicles “baseless” and claimed that its success in international markets was due to innovation.
Some of the information in this report comes from Reuters and AFP.
