The European Union has escalated disputes with China to the World Trade Organization, requesting panels be assembled to hear two cases – one over trade restrictions on Lithuania and the other on legal recourses for EU patent holders.
“In both cases, the Chinese measures are highly damaging to European businesses,” the European Commission said.
In the Lithuanian case, they even “impact the functioning of the EU internal market”, it stated.
China is the European Union’s biggest trading partner, and the litigation burdens the World Trade Organization with a thorny challenge at a time when its dispute settlement system is badly weakened.
The Lithuania case is over trade restrictions China has been applying to that EU member country because of Lithuania’s strengthening ties with Taiwan, which China views as part of its territory.
Beijing has denied taking coercive measures against Lithuania.
But Lithuanian exports to China have dropped 80 percent over the past year, ever since Chinese authorities started rejecting many Lithuanian imports.
The commission said that China’s claims in February that bans on Lithuanian alcohol, beef, dairy products, logs, peat and wheat were on health grounds were not justified.
Credit: rfi
