EU to Impose Anti-Dumping Duties on China, Taiwan Stainless Steel
The European Union will impose punitive anti-dumping duties from Thursday on imports of stainless steel cold-rolled sheet from China and Taiwan, according to a notice on Wednesday in the EU #39;s...
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The raids were part of an ongoing investigation into possible anticompetitive agreements between electronics retailers and manufacturers
European Union antitrust investigators have raided the offices of a number of companies involved in the online sale of consumer electronics products, officials said Wednesday.
The raids, on March 10, were part of an ongoing investigation into possible anticompetitive agreements between electronics retailers and manufacturers, a European Commission spokesman said in an email.
"The Commission has concerns that the companies concerned may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit anticompetitive agreements or concerted practices," he added.
The raids are a follow-up of inspections conducted in December 2013, when the Commission raided Samsung Electronics, Philips and electronics retailer Media-Saturn, among other companies.
The spokesman would not name the companies raided this month, nor say whether the Commission targeted the same companies as in 2013.
Samsung and Philips did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Staff at Media-Saturn, one of Europe's largest electronic retailers, would not immediately comment.
The investigation does not concern three other major electronics retailers, Dixons-Carphone, Darty and Euronics, staff reached at those companies said.
The Commission has grounds to suspect the companies raided have restricted online sales of consumer electronics products and small domestic appliances, which might lead to higher prices for consumers or the unavailability of products in some online shops.
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Online electronics retailers raided by EU antitrust officials
Since the beginning of the year, we have seen a genuine communication offensive the Brussels bureaucrats have been insistently promoting among the public in the 28 member states of the European Union. Its objective is to convince that the new European Commission staff is more effective and operative. At least in the energy area. An economic segment the EU cannot cover even in break-down situations. The European Union is an economic power faced with an unimaginable energy imbalance. With two or three exceptions represented by countries that have exploitable resources, the Union depends on import oil and gas. In Central and Eastern Europe, Romania is the only country with resources to meet its demand and export, in the near future. The Iberian Peninsula sources its gas from Algeria. And so does the Italic Peninsula. Northern states have the Norway and Great Britain gas handy and the ones in the Centre and East of Europe depend over 60-70% on Russian gas. The situation is not a reason of joy. The EU imports over half of the energy it uses, with an annual bill of almost EUR 400 bn. The energy dependence on import frails its geopolitical position. Also for this reason, the economy of the EU had a deficit of competitiveness compared to the US, plus many analysis say a far too ambitious environmental strategy given the scarcity of energy resources.
The discrepancy in what regards the sources of supply are visible in the Union. The situation has also caused the lack of unity and interest of the European Union in building a unitary policy in the field. Although Poland has insisted, ever since it joined the EU, that the Union should define its own energy strategy, Warsaws efforts have been ignored and deemed as anti-Russia. And that is true, to a great extent. The objective of Polish politicians has been and is the isolation of Russia. Or, if not that, at least raise a dam to discourage Moscows monopolist policy. Neither has been successful. On the other hand, since almost a year ago, the European Union and the Russian Federation have been in a state of economic war which can degenerate at any time. Divergent national policies have so far disunited the EU in the area of energy policy. Germany had and has a secure Russian gas supply and is now pushing for renewable resources. France doesnt want to give up its nuclear energy facilities that provided a certain indifference to the misfortune of central and Eastern European countries. Poland, since five years ago, has strived to impose its strategic objective of coal.
Meanwhile, the energy situation in Europe, including the EU, has deteriorated, especially following Moscows latest blackmail action. That is with reference to the termination of the South Stream project and steps to set up an energy hub either in Bulgaria or, more recently, in Hungary. Of course, Turkey, too.
In this situation, the Commission headed by Jean Claude Junker presented, on 24 February 2015, with a lot of emphasis, a Union of Energy project. Not energy union. The terminology is not just semantic, it defines, again, the lack of EU interest in the future of this strategic sector. On 19 March, the Council of the Union, made up of heads of state and government, approved the Union of Energy. The unity of views ascertained during the days of the Council indicates that the document had no stake political or economic. Each of the 28 state representatives signed the document knowing that it wasnt going to have any practical consequence. The 15 action points of the Union of Energy do not configure any deep change. We can say the status-quo is preserved.
A Commission official has told the EUobserver that the Energy Union was actually a process.
One cannot say at a certain point in the future, this is the date when the Union of Energy will be set, it is not like (A borderless area) Schengen or when the euro currency was introduced. It is a process, the official said.
Such an unclarity made it easier for EU leaders to endorse the formula of energy unity. Austrian Energy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner said that each member state reads the EU paper in its own way.
Some focus on the internal energy market, others look at the issue of the security of supply. The Commission proposal is greatly uncontroversial but, evidently, the devil is in details, Polish Minister Rafal Trzaskowski told the press last week. The devil is not just in details, but also in the substance of a genuine Union in the field. As we have said, the Poles wanted a clear energy strategy, with a time scale, to remove Gazprom monopoly, then, still the Polish people insisted on an Energy Union where Brussels should make clear commitments and measures, with sanctions for failure to fulfill them. As the Monetary Union Treaty stipulates, for instance.
In the absence of a consensus for an Energy Strategy, the result was what is now called Union of Energy.
Shape without substance.
Continued here:
Union of Energy, not Energy Union
BERLIN Chinese investors have a powerful attraction to companies in the European Union, and their targets are increasingly high-profile. In recent days, theyve shown interest in an 18-building compound on Berlins Potsdamer Platz and in the Italian tire-maker Pirelli. For some unfathomable reason, Europe considers Chinese investors, even state-owned ones, more benign than, say, Russian ones.
Until 2011, China was mostly a receiver of European investment, but then the debt crisis drove down asset prices. Some governments became desperate to privatize, and venerable corporations got less picky about potential investors. Chinese buyers acquired Volvo in Sweden, a large stake in Peugeot Citroen and fashion house Sonya Rykiel in France, the Piraeus Port in Greece, Pizza Express restaurants and the upscale clothing maker Aquascutum in the United Kingdom. Chinese investment increased exponentially:
Last year when the Peugeot and Pizza Express deals were made Chinese merger and acquisition activity in Europe set a new record. Although Chinese investment in the U.S. has also grown, outstripping U.S. flows into China, Europe has proved more welcoming.
China holds only about 1 percent of the European foreign direct investment (FDI) stock not enough to worry about. But this doesnt include local booms in private Chinese investment, like those in Portuguese or Latvian real estate under those countries golden visa programs. Europe is relatively cheap, its open, and its got things that Chinese companies are after: technology and household brand names.
The Pirelli deal is about the latter. The bidder, China National Tire & Rubber Company, part of the state-owned giant ChemChina, sells 20 million tires a year, but no one has ever heard of its brands, Rubber Six and Aeolus. It doesnt have Pirellis glorious racing history or its famous calendar. The Italian company seems overvalued trading at 23 times earnings, compared with 16 for Michelin and 11 for Koreas Kumho. Yet it has the fifth most valuable tire brand in the world, and the other two European brands in the top five, Michelin and Continental, belong to much bigger companies that make unwieldy targets for acquisition.
For an ambitious buyer with plenty of money and production capacity, Pirelli is the perfect deal. Its market cap is only $7.5 billion (tiny compared with ChemChinas revenue last year of almost $40 billion), and its name can propel the Chinese tire giant to international prominence. Its a bit like when the Chinese company Geely bought Volvo not just for its technology but for its international recognition. Although the market has already overshot ChemChinas initial offer price, premium and all, it would need to go much higher before Pirelli becomes too expensive for what is essentially an arm of the Chinese government.
Therein lies a problem.
Most Chinese investment in Europe goes into existing, established firms. There are almost no greenfield projects. Theres nothing wrong with private companies such as Pizza Express buyer Hony Capital, potential Potsdamer Platz investors Fosun International and Ping An Insurance, or Volvo savior Geely buying into European firms. Cross-border business is common these days. But when old European brands fall into the hands of Chinese state companies, it becomes geopolitics, too: European countries are, in effect, lending part of their heritage to the octopus that is the Chinese government so it can expand its global influence. For the moment, Chinese investment seems like money falling from the sky, but it could turn into a Trojan horse introducing Chinese politics and values into the heart of Europe, Princeton Universitys Sophie Meunier wrote in a 2014 paper.
European investors in China are required to set up joint ventures with Chinese partners, and other restrictions apply in specific industries. The EU is trying to negotiate for more openness, but Europe remains at a disadvantage. This isnt just about reciprocity, however. Openness to investment by Chinese state entities means support for a regime that is not necessarily Europes friend and that certainly doesnt share its values. Its no better than throwing European markets open to state-owned Russian energy giants such as Rosneft and Gazprom. They would gladly buy up everything they could, if only to strengthen Moscows negotiating position with the EU.
These days, European governments are wary of Russian investments, even the private kind. The U.K. is forcing billionaire Mikhail Fridmans company LetterOne to sell off the North Sea oil production facilities it acquired with the German energy company Dea. Its not clear what makes state-owned Dongfeng Motor or ChemChina more acceptable.
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The Chinese government wants to buy Europe
PARIS: A German budget airliner crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday with 150 people on board declared dead.
It was one of the worst aviation disasters in the European Union in the past 20 years:
2015
March 24: FRANCE - An Airbus A320 airliner belonging to Lufthansa's low-cost Germanwings crashes en route from Barcelona to Duesseldorf in the French Alps. France says all 150 people on Flight 4U 9525 died. Germanwings says they included at least 67 Germans, of whom 16 were schoolchildren, as well as Spaniards and Turks.
2008
August 20: SPAIN An MD82 plane owned by Spanish low cost company Spanair crashes and turns into a fireball while taking off at Madrid for the Canary Islands, killing 154 people.
2005
August 14: GREECE A Boeing belonging to Cyprus company Helios crashes near Athens, killing 121 people.
2001
October 8: ITALY A collision between an MD87 belonging to Scandinavian airline SAS and a private Cessna plane in the fog at MilanLinate airport leaves 118 dead.
The rest is here:
European Union's most deadly air crashes