The European Commission has taken exception to the way Australians are handling claims of subsidised Italian tomatoes being dumped on the Australian market. While the commission doesn’t challenge the fact of payments made to Italian farmers, the commission believes the subsidies fall outside of international agreements on free trade.
It says its payments to farmers comply with World Trade Organisation requirements.
A letter from the commission also takes exception to a claim that there could potentially be cartels organised by Italian producers.
The Australian Anti Dumping Commission is conducting an inquiry into the dumping of canned Italian tomatoes onto the Australian market, which SPC claims is unfair and damaging to the Australian industry.
The European Commission’s directorate for trade has sent a letter to the Anti Dumping Commission, following the release of a report by the Law and Economics Consulting Associates which found that the Italian tomato exports were subsidised, but that the amount was not significant.
SPC is challenging this observation.
The European Commission has weighed into the trade dispute with a strong defence of the Italian companies and has been critical of the report.
‘‘In the European Commission’s view, the approach of the Anti-Dumping Commission to analyse the effects of subsidies in the framework of an anti dumping investigation contravenes the WTO rules. In any case the income aid for farmers, the Single Payment Scheme, is a decoupled, non specific, income support scheme.’’
