A few days before the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Europe, Brussels is making a move, in duplicate, to put pressure on Beijing and achieve greater reciprocity in its bilateral trade relations.
For the first time, the European Commission has used the international contracting instrument approved this legislature to react to possible obstacles for European companies to access markets in third countries and has done so to investigate the obstacles and “discriminatory procedures” that China may be using. imposing on EU companies that try to access tenders in the country’s healthcare market.
Brussels has indications that the Chinese authorities “have seriously and recurrently hindered the access of economic operators, goods and services of the Union to the public procurement market for health products” in the country, as stated in the announcement published this Wednesday. in the Official Journal of the EU. Among the denounced measures is the obligation for hospitals to make at least half of their purchases from national suppliers, in addition to excessive bureaucratic requirements. The existence of abnormally low offers has also been detected.
Community institutions have up to nine months to carry out their investigation. Although the new instrument provides for the possibility that, in the event that the Commission concludes that there is discrimination and there is no agreement to correct the situation, the European Union closes the affected market to companies from the country in question, the The objective is rather to reach an agreement and improve reciprocity of access, community sources explained.
In parallel, the European Commission has carried out surprise searches in the offices of a company in the security sector, whose name has not been revealed, in the Netherlands and Poland to look for possible evidence amid suspicions that it may have received public aid. illegal aliens. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce denounced this Wednesday that European officials had carried out unannounced “dawn raids” on one of its companies in Europe and accused Brussels of “instrumentalizing” its regulatory powers to punish them. These investigations join other European files opened in recent months for possible subsidies for electric cars and solar panels that China sells in the EU.
