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BRUSSELS, Nov. 16-- To protect some uncompetitive industries against imports from third countries, the EU enhanced its trade deference instrument (TDI) on Wednesday when the European Parliament finalized its legislative procedure by approving amendments to EU's new anti-dumping rules. However, it won't tackle competitiveness issue of those industries at root. The new rules continue to use "surrogate country approach" in a disguised way though this approach expired on Dec. 11, 2016 in accordance with the accession protocol signed when China joined the WTO in 2001. The core of the new rules is using the "substantial market distortions," which is stated neither in the anti-dumping nor the anti-subsidy rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), as a replacement of the "surrogate country approach." GO BEYOND LEGITIMATE SCOPE "The problem with the EU TDI system is that it de facto goes beyond its legitimate scope," said Christian Verschueren, director-general of EuroCommerce, the EU's trade representative group for retail and wholesale. He said as a matter of fact, certain sectors in the EU bitterly depend on anti-dumping as a sort of last resort, or as a life insurance in the stormy seas of the world market. He believed competitiveness issue should be tackled at root rather than artificially protecting less competitive sectors from international competition. And the EU should have an interest in competitive raw material and steel prices. | 
