EU will soon reinstate duties on Argentine biodiesel imports, lobby
The EU’s removal of duties on biodiesel imports placed on 13 Argentine and Indonesian producers following the end of legal proceedings at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will only be temporary, said a consultant with an Argentinian biofuels lobby Carbio.
Gustavo Idigoras told Agricensus that the removal of these duties would last for around one month until the European Commission can reinstate them at a different level.
He added: “The Commission said the assessment of the ECJ was a recalculation of the anti-dumping duties. The EC views the ECJ’s ruling as a statement that the duties had been wrongly calculated. The Commission does not view the ECJ to be saying that the duties were illegal. That is why the Commission will reinstate duties.”
In 2017, the EU cut anti-dumping duties to between 4.5% and 8.1% for Argentinian biodiesel from the original rates of 22%-25.7%. The rates for Indonesia were retained at those set in 2013 - between 8.8% and 20.5%.
The EU in 2013 set anti-dumping duties on imports of biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia, but the ECJ and the World Trade Organization (WTO) subsequently ruled against the implementation of duties, prompting the Commission to appeal.
The EC appealed against the 2016 ECJ ruling but dropped it earlier this year.
This was registered by the court in February and the parties were notified earlier this month.
Anti-dumping duties are still in place for those companies that failed to challenge the measure, Idigoras said.
This decision provides a clear advantage to the companies that mounted a challenge to the duties in 2013, which grouped together account for 90% of the country’s biodiesel exports.
Some of the firms include the Argentinian units of Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus, as well as Molinos Rio de la Plata and Indonesia's Ciliandra Perkasa.
Both Argentina and Indonesia currently impose export duties on the raw materials for biodiesel - soybeans for Argentina and palm oil for Indonesia.
The EU believes that these export duties benefit local biodiesel producers as they have lower feedstock costs compared with other markets.
New investigation
Earlier this year, the EC launched a new investigation into whether Argentine biodiesel exporters benefit from unfair subsidies, following a complaint by the European Biodiesel Board.
The investigation will seek to determine whether biodiesel producers in Argentina have benefitted from cheap soybeans, government support in buying biodiesel and other forms of subsidies such as loans or taxes not collected.