The EU is lobbying China to exclude agriculture from a series of escalating commercial disputes, calling for the “strategic sector” to be protected from trade tensions in the renewable energy and electric vehicle industries.The bloc has launched several investigations over the past year into Chinese suppliers that it alleges have contravened a new foreign subsidies regulation, which gives Brussels the power to “address distortions” that benefit third country companies operating in the EU.
“My intention is to do everything which is possible to avoid the situation that agriculture is a victim of the problems in other sectors,” EU agriculture commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski said in an interview during a visit to Beijing late last month.
Wojciechowski added that he told “Chinese partners” that “we should treat agriculture as a sector which requires special protection . . . as a strategic sector, strategic for security”.