The European Union came under growing pressure on Monday to accelerate its planned probe into a surge in Chinese textiles imports as Paris led calls for fast action to protect European jobs. France, struggling to win approval for Europe's proposed constitution in a May 29 poll where voter scepticism about the EU is rife, urged the European Commission to prepare measures targeting Chinese imports from T-shirts to trousers.
The EU executive said it would study any request for an emergency procedure to speed up its probe but cautioned that over-hasty action could fall foul of World Trade Organisation rules and so trigger a challenge by China.
"There is a risk that any measure we took which was not founded on sufficient facts and on a sufficient legal basis could be challenged at the WTO," Commission spokeswoman Claude Veron-Reville told a news briefing in Brussels.
"We are in an area that has not been tested yet," she added.
Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson is recommending the opening of a probe into nine categories of Chinese textile and clothing products, which have leapt in some cases by over 500 percent since a global quota system was scrapped on January 1.
Veron-Reville said the Commission is due to take a decision on his recommendation on Tuesday or Wednesday, opening the way for possible quantitative restrictions within 150 days.
That is too slow for the dozen or so EU countries where the textiles sector is a big employer. Those countries, which include France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece, also want a widening of the probe to cover up to 20 product groups.
"September is far too distant a deadline and the defence of jobs cannot wait," France's Michel Barnier told reporters at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
He urged the Commission to take "effective protective measures at the latest this summer". A French source said that meant July at the earliest, given the need to observe WTO accords.
In Beijing, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said it was watching any moves by the EU that could lead to formal curbs, with a spokeswoman adding: "There is still room for discussion".
Veron-Reville said any member state could request the use of an emergency procedure, which would drastically cut short the first part of the process: a period of investigations and informal consultations with China lasting no more than 60 days.
This would still leave a 90-day period of formal consultations with China, which would have to take measures at that stage to cut its exports, or face EU-imposed restrictions.
Under the terms of its entry into WTO in 2001, Beijing agreed that members could cap imports of Chinese clothing and textiles at 7.5 percent above the level of shipments the previous year until 2008 - provided they demonstrate that their own firms are suffering.
China made 17 percent of the world's textiles and clothing in 2003, but the WTO sees that market share rising to above 50 percent within the coming three years.
Mandelson said he wanted an investigation into sharp rises in imports from China of T-shirts, pullovers, men's trousers, blouses, stockings and socks, women's overcoats, brassieres, flax or ramie yarn and woven fabrics flax.
In a statement, industry group European Apparel and Textile Organisation (EURATEX) welcomed the Commission plan as a "first clear signal" that the EU was preparing action.
"In certain member states we are running into a catastrophe. It's not that the companies were not prepared. They were not prepared to absorb such abnormal increases and price cuts," EURATEX's Francesco Marchi told Reuters in Brussels.
However the 25-nation EU is not united on the need for curbs, with a bloc of largely northern countries including Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands complaining such action would smack of protectionism.
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