A majority of European Union countries rebelled on Wednesday against a plan to keep controversial anti-dumping duties on leather shoes from China and Vietnam, diplomats said. The views of national trade experts who met on Wednesday are not binding but could add to pressure on European trade chief Peter Mandelson to rethink a plan to review the duties, something that would extend them for up to 15 months.
European retailers and global shoe companies, which use low-cost China and Vietnam for manufacturing, said the show of opposition to the review meant Brussels had to accept that the "shoe taxes" were now dead.
"Hopefully this vote will send a strong signal that in the current economic climate, protectionists simply can't go on penalising Europe's consumers," said Alisdair Gray, a director with the director of the British Retail Consortium. The introduction of the duties by the EU split the bloc in 2006 between supporters of freer trade and countries worried about Chinese competition for their own shoe manufacturers.
The duties were approved only after a compromise to keep them in place for two years, instead of the usual five. The duties are due to expire next month. Italy and some other shoe-making countries in Europe have pressed for the duties to be extended, a move opposed by other European countries that have long called the measures protectionist and unjustified. A spokesman for Mandelson declined to comment on the outcome of the meeting of national trade experts on Wednesday. A diplomat attending the meeting said 15 countries opposed the idea of a review for the duties and 12 were in favour.
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