EU should guard against Chinese attempts to destroy European rivals, the bloc’s new competition chief says

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The European Union should guard against Chinese attempts to dominate the bloc’s clean-tech market and make sure its exports aren’t destroying local rivals, the bloc’s new competition chief warned.

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In her first interview since becoming the EU’s antitrust commissioner, Teresa Ribera told Bloomberg that Europe and the US failed in recent years to anticipate the threat of China’s ambitions for global dominance in those industries and the bloc needs to urgently pay more attention.

“It’s the cheap materials and cheap equipment arriving in this market, then investing to produce them in Europe” with markets then closing to European rivals, Ribera said. She added that it was necessary to probe “how this may have an impact in terms of killing competitors within the same market and then controlling the market.”

Spanish socialist Ribera, who assumed the reins of the EU’s powerful antitrust portfolio on Monday, also suggested the bloc needs to consider issuing joint debt to help bolster its clean-tech transition. In the new European Commission, she has an expanded role that also includes helping to chart the clean-tech transition while defending the EU’s competitiveness against China and the US.

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“Something which was not sufficiently noticed by western industries and western governments 15 years ago is when China said, ‘We want to be the first producer of green equipments in the world,’” according to Ribera. “The question is not how good this equipment may be. The question is to what extent they respect the level playing field.”

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Clothing and retailing markets face similar challenges as the likes of Shein and Temu flood the EU with goods that may not align with its green standards. She suggested the bloc needs to see “how we can raise the bar of the standards in other parts of the world through access to a very attractive market.”

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