Trade: Scholz calls for fair competition for the auto industry in China

During his trip to China, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) expressed his support for Chinese vehicles in Europe – but also called for the same access to the Chinese market for European cars. “The only thing that must always be clear is that the competition must be fair,” said Scholz during a discussion with students at Tongji University in Shanghai. “So that there is no dumping, that there is no overproduction, that no copyright is being violated.”

Companies should be allowed to set up production facilities without this being made more difficult by bureaucratic hurdles. “Of course we want our companies to have no restrictions. But conversely, we behave exactly as we intend to here,” said Scholz, referring to German skepticism about tendencies within the EU to defend the markets against international competition.

The latter was previously warned by the President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen at. There is currently a “drastic overproduction of electric vehicles in China, coupled with massive government subsidies,” she told the editorial network Germany (RND). The USA, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey have already sealed off their markets.

“The EU cannot be the only market that remains open to Chinese overproduction,” said von der Leyen. “We must not experience in Europe the same thing that happened with solar panels: that state-subsidized dumping prices unfairly force European manufacturers out of the market and that the bottom line is that production then goes to China.”

This article will continue to be updated.