The European Commission proposed Wednesday to extend a long-running anti-dumping tariff on imports of Chinese-made low-energy light bulbs, provoking outrage from environmentalists, according to dpa. In their first meeting after the summer recess, commissioners agreed that the anti-dumping measures, which were initiated in 2001, were "no longer justified," but that they should be phased out within a year, rather than being instantly dropped, EC officials said. The extension - an unusual, but not unprecedented measure in such cases - will "allow a further period ... in which EU companies can adjust to new patterns of production and trade," an EC press release added. But the proposal to continue the policy in the short term - and thus effectively restrict European consumers' access to cheaper low- energy technology - was harshly criticized by environmentalists. The proposal is "disappointing, unfair and seriously inconsistent with the ambitious EU targets to improve energy efficiency in Europe and to curb climate change," conservation organisation WWF said in a press release. "On the one hand, Europe has committed to an ambitious energy efficiency objective, and on the other hand it continues to impose taxes on imports of green products," the group's trade and investment specialist Eivind Hoff explained. The EC's proposal - which still has to be approved by member states - also met with a negative reaction from retailers, who see it as a means of protecting major EU producers. "The commission needs to put the environment before the narrow self-interests of a minority of member countries and scrap import duties on Chinese bulbs," the head of the British Retail Consortium, Kevin Hawkins, said in a statement on the organisation's website. "It's not about the size of the tariffs or how long they last: the tariffs are wrong in principle, as a straightforward protectionism measure. The BRC is going to call on EU member states to veto the proposal when they consider it in September," BRC spokesman Richard Dodd added. The commission introduced the anti-dumping tariffs of up to 66 per cent in 2001, after an investigation ruled that Chinese low-energy bulbs were being sold in Europe for less than their real value. But this spring EU leaders proposed that traditional, but inefficient, incandescent bulbs be phased out across the EU by 2009, as one of a series of measures aimed at reducing carbon emissions. The commission, whose task it is to draft EU laws, is expected to come back with legal proposals to that effect in September.
