BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
After a high-level meeting with the DTI on Tuesday BA president Eddie Eccleston is confident that the EBMA-instigated EU-sanctioned dumping investigation will fail.
(PS on the same day Eddie was meant to be meeting Lord Whitty, transport minister, to discuss the bells on bikes issue which is soon to go through the formality – rubber stamping? – of a consultation process but Lord Whitty had flu so was unable to attend).
BikeBiz spoke to Eddie on his mobile phone as he was travelling back from London on the train. He told us that a meeting of the EUs Advisory Committee (where ministerial representatives of each European member state come together periodically to discuss dumping) discussed the bike trade investigation on 1st December.
The committee were sympathetic to the argument that much of the European bicycle industry (including EBMA members such as Accell and Derby International) were now set against the continuation of the dumping investigation but agreed that unless EBMA withdrew their complaint the investigation would continue. This was because the only way the EU could verify support for EBMAs latest action had evaporated would be to continue the investigation.
The BA equivalents in the Netherands, Germany, France and Austria have all lodged their oppostion to EBMAs stance.
EBMA member companies could call an emergency meeting of EBMA and demand that the investigation complaint be withdrawn but, to date, no such meeting has been convened mainly because such a move may jeopardise the existing duties levied on the importation of complete bicycles from China.
