If the EU Trade Commission follows this legal advice, the EU might see far more low price imports coming in from the People's Republic. At the moment, the EU is allowed to have higher tariffs in place because - since 2001, when China joined the free trady body - the WTO has defined and seen China as a country whose prices were set by central diktat, rather than market prices. However, that definition ends on 11 December 2016.

Difficult decision

Mr Romero Requena has now written to the EU trade directorate warning that it would be 'a high-risk approach' for the EU to continue to treat China differently from other major trading partners. The fact that the EU executive has even asked its lawyers for their opinion is seen as showing the dfficulty it is having in deciding what to do. Source: Reuters