South China Morning Post By Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels
Commissioner calls for faster trade probes and WTO reform as Brussels confronts overcapacity, subsidies and a US$424 billion deficit. The European Union’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic has railed against the bloc’s glacial trade defences, warning that years-long probes and rigid rules will not protect the bloc from China’s increasingly fierce export machine. Speaking in the European Parliament on Tuesday, Sefcovic lashed out at Beijing’s “unsustainable” trade surplus and called for an urgent overhaul of world trading rules to account for “overcapacities”, “unfair trade policies” and “state subsidies”.