China and EU reach ‘technical consensus’ in EV talks

BEIJING: China and the European Union (EU) have reached “technical consensus” in their talks aimed at scaling back or reversing tariffs that the bloc applied to China-made electric vehicles, according to a posting on a Weibo account affiliated with the state-run China Central Television (CCTV).

The two sides have been exploring an agreement on so-called price undertakings – a complex mechanism to control prices and volumes of exports, used to avoid tariffs.

China and the trade bloc held talks on Nov 2 to Nov 7, after which they said that they had made “technical progress” and would continue negotiations this week.

“The consensus on the price commitment framework refers to some certain agreements reached by both parties in this round of negotiations about the overall framework, which also indicates that both parties are willing to focus their resources on negotiating core interests and strive towards the same goal,” CCTV reported last Saturday, citing people it didn’t identify.

The EU sees very limited progress in the negotiations and the bloc currently sees little prospect of a quick deal, Bloomberg News reported last week.

China hasn’t yet moved toward the EU’s strict requirements on ensuring that any arrangement is enforceable and matches the effect of the anti-subsidy tariffs the bloc adopted last month, according to people familiar with the matter.

Reports that China hasn’t made a satisfactory proposal to the EU and that the chance of an agreement is slim are “intentionally misleading public opinion and interfering with the negotiation process,” CCTV said, without specifying which reports it referred to.