Europe launches subsidies probe into Chinese wind turbine suppliers

The European Union has launched an investigation into China’s state support for its wind turbine companies, intensifying a push to protect Europe’s industry from a flood of cheap Chinese imports.

The European Union has launched an investigation into China’s state support for its wind turbine companies, intensifying a push to protect Europe’s industry from a flood of cheap Chinese imports. Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, said Tuesday that the probe would look into the development of wind farms in Spain, Greece, France, Romania and Bulgaria. The move provides further evidence of tensions between China, the world’s biggest manufacturer, and its major trading partners resulting from the oversupply of Chinese goods in key industries around the world. The country’s global trade surplus in goods has soared in recent years and is now approaching $1 trillion. On Thursday, a Chinese commerce ministry official responded that Beijing “firmly opposes” the investigation. The probe not only “seriously damages” the confidence of Chinese enterprises operating in Europe, but also interferes with mutually beneficial industrial cooperation between the two sides, the official said in a statement. “It will also affect global efforts to address climate change and the process of green transformation.” Vestager’s announcement as part of a speech in Princeton, New Jersey, came just days after the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, opened a separate subsidies probe into Chinese companies bidding for a solar farm contract in Romania.