EU rejects France’s complaint against Korean carmakers

The European Union has dismissed France’s request to monitor imports of Korean cars more closely to restrict the soaring sales of them in the country.

According to the Trade Ministry in Seoul, the European Commission officially decided on Monday to reject France’s demand to put Korean autos on a prior surveillance list.

Trade officials said the executive body of the EU reviewed the French request made in July and decided not to accept it. France apparently made the request with the aim of driving the EU to invoke a safeguard measure against imports from Korea, industry observers said.

EU spokesman John Clancy confirmed that France’s request had been rejected because the legal conditions for taking action were not met, according to Bloomberg.

“Even if imports into the EU of cars from Korea indeed increased over the last months, there was no indication that such an increase was concentrated in France,” Clancy said in a statement.

The French authorities asked the commission to introduce prior surveillance measures, contending that its domestic auto market has been hit by a surge in imports of Korean vehicles.

They contended that sales of Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors in Europe surged 28.5 percent this year, whereas French carmakers experienced a 14.4 percent drop.

But the Seoul government and domestic carmakers have claimed that vehicles exported to France are manufactured in the EU region, not shipped from Korea. They have also insisted that car imports from the EU also surged after the Korea-EU FTA took effect in July last year.

Most of the Hyundai and Kia vehicles sold in Europe are produced in EU countries such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Hyundai officials have said their company has not benefited much from the Korea-EU FTA as the tariff was zero even before effectuation of the trade pact.

In the first six months of this year, Hyundai and Kia posted a combined 5.9 percent market share in Europe, with sales rising 12.2 percent to 232,454 units and 25.1 percent to 173,232 vehicles, respectively.

(kys@heraldcorp.com)