Europe’s trade association and sole voice for the light electric vehicle industry, Leva-EU, says companies that exclusively assemble e-bikes face discrimination that threatens their existence. It also hurts the Green Deal goals outlined by the commission “and could severely hamper the EU’s net-zero emissions target.” Currently, e-bike assemblers must pay a 48.5 percent anti-dumping duty on key bicycle components from China, even though the components are not subject to duty under Regulation 512/2013. They also have to go through a difficult application process to prove the use of the components.
In contrast, companies that assemble both conventional bicycles and e-bikes – using the same components – generally obtained duty exemption on bicycle components some time ago “by demonstrating to the Commission that the value of the Chinese components does not exceed 59 percent of the value of the conventional bicycle or that the value added by the assembly is more than 25 percent of the manufacturing cost.” The recently published Regulation 2020/1296 means that companies in the EU can now automatically use this exemption for the assembly of both conventional and e-bikes, but companies that only manufacture e-bikes must go through a different process.
Leva-EU has submitted a proposal to the European Commission to amend Regulation 2020/1296 that would end discrimination against e-bike manufacturers. The organization explains that e-bike companies must obtain exemption from the 48.5 percent tariffs through end-use authorisation, which is handled by national customs with very little success.
“The question we have for the European Commission is why they feel it was necessary to introduce this discrimination? There are numerous examples of companies trying to obtain this authorisation in vain. The administrative and financial burden resulting from this procedure is extremely heavy and complicated,” explains Annick Roetynck, director of Leva-EU. „We had a meeting with the Commission and presented them with a proposal for amending Regulation 2020/1296. If they accept our proposal, it would, we hope, solve the issue for new companies and for companies who are in the process of applying for end-use authorisation.”
Photo: © Galen Crout on Unsplash
