The European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC) has joined 22 other European industry bodies in signing an open letter, calling for greater protection by the EU from “unfair trade practices” in “non-market economies” that pose a threat to European supply chains.
European industry leaders have called for the EU to be involved in a key “revision” of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, from which the EU defines its own rules, to ensure “fair” market conditions in sectors that have an increasingly global supply chain. The open letter calls for the allocation of “sufficient staff” to the office of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade (DG Trade) to better perform “trade defence investigations”, and for the EU to “consider a new instrument” to tackle the international import of state-supported goods.
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The open letter also calls for “a more strategic use of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR)”, a mechanism by which the EU can investigate and counteract subsidies provided for products by governments outside the EU and asks for the EU to use its Trade Defence Instruments (TDIs) “more flexibility, faster and preventively”.
These TDIs include anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) measures, which are intended to counteract the government subsidies and tax incentives offered by what the open letter calls “non-market economies” to encourage the production and export of products. AD/CVD has been the measure of choice for the US as it has sought to limit imports of solar products from a number of regions, including China, India, Indonesia, Laos and, for the first time this year, Africa.
ESMC calls for ‘fair and level playing field’
While the open letter signed by the ESMC does not name countries that have engaged in these practices or identify products supposedly produced by unfair means, it is clear that the ESMC’s involvement is tied to the import of low-cost solar PV products made in China and exported to Europe, often at lower prices than European manufacturers can offer.
China’s dominance of the global solar supply chain is nothing new—figures from the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) show that China produced 96.6% of the world’s solar wafers 93.2% of its polysilicon and 92.3% of its cells in 2024—but buyers of Chinese products have increasingly sought to push back on the government subsidies involved in these products’ manufacturing.
In addition to the US’ lengthy AD/CVD cases, the EU is currently considering two requests for AD/CVD interventions in Europe made against producers and exporters of solar glass; the two cases name the same 37 Chinese companies, plus the same seven companies from outside the EU, as those involved in importing solar glass to Europe at what the investigations’ documentation calls “subsidised prices”.
“A fair and level playing field is the precondition for any industrial base to survive in Europe,” said Christoph Podewils, secretary general of ESMC. “Solar manufacturers have already learned what it costs to act too late. The Commission has the tools; what is missing is the speed and the staff to use them in time.”
China’s dominance in the global solar supply chain and the reliance of European developers on Chinese products mean that European solar manufacturing has all but dried up. While companies such as Holosolis have advanced plans to build European manufacturing plants, earlier this year, French company Carbon, which had been at the forefront of efforts to revive European solar manufacturing, abandoned plans to build a 5GW module manufacturing plant in France.
