Argentina Files WTO Complaint against EU Biodiesel Duties

Argentina and the EU are set to face off once more at the WTO, with Buenos Aires filing a formal complaint last month over Brussels’ decision to impose duties on imported Argentine biodiesel. The dispute (DS473) is the third one that the South American country has launched against the EU’s biodiesel trade policies in less than two years.

The duties at issue were confirmed by EU member states this past autumn, following a European Commission investigation into whether Argentina’s biodiesel producers were selling their product abroad at prices below their normal value - a practice known in trade jargon as dumping.

In its complaint, Buenos Aires claims that Brussels unfairly calculated these final anti-dumping duties - which range from €217 and €246 per metric tonne - by using insufficient and improper data.

Argentina is the world’s top supplier of biodiesel; together with Indonesia, the two countries represent 90 percent of the EU’s market share of the product. Indonesian producers were also investigated by the European Commission last year, and face anti-dumping duties of their own.

While the EU has said that the duties are necessary to level the playing field for its own producers, Argentina insists that European industry is oversized, and lacks the necessary raw material and vertical integration to be truly competitive.

“Rather than undertaking reforms to improve its own competitiveness, European industry has sought and found an administrative - and completely arbitrary - response from Brussels, one that closes the European market to efficient biodiesel producers such as Argentina,” the Argentine Foreign Ministry said, warning against the financial impact that the duties would have on its own domestic industry.

Under WTO rules, parties to a dispute must conduct consultations for a minimum of 60 days in an effort to resolve their differences. If this fails, the complainant may then request that a panel be established to hear the case.