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[Opinion] Europe's Patience With China's Factory Glut Runs Out (theeuropeanpost.eu)
submitted 18 hours ago by tardigrade@scribe.disroot.org to c/europe@feddit.org
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For three years Europe has repeated the same phrase about China, de-risking, not decoupling, and for three years it has struggled to show what the phrase means in practice. In mid-2026 that is starting to change.

At the European Council on 19 June, heads of state handed the Commission a clear political mandate to strengthen the bloc’s defences against Chinese industrial overcapacity and other forms of what Brussels calls unfair competition. The debate ran for more than two hours, which in European summitry signals a genuine argument rather than a rubber stamp.

The numbers behind the frustration are stark. The EU’s trade deficit with China has swollen to roughly 360 billion euros a year, close to a billion euros every day. Behind that figure sits a pattern European manufacturers know well: heavily subsidised Chinese capacity in electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries and now chemicals, produced far in excess of Chinese demand and pushed onto world markets at prices domestic rivals cannot match.

...

Yet the [European] Commission is careful to keep the door open. De-risking was always meant to reduce exposure, not to sever a relationship worth hundreds of billions in two-way trade.

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Beijing, for its part, reads every tariff as provocation and has warned of retaliation against European farm goods, spirits and luxury exports.

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What has shifted in 2026 is not the slogan but the resolve behind it. Europe has stopped debating whether Chinese overcapacity is a problem and started arguing about how forcefully to answer it. For a bloc that prizes consensus and caution, that is a meaningful change of gear.

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[-] tardigrade@scribe.disroot.org 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

No European should pay more for the same quality and same ethical standards.

Yeah, but Chinese companies don't have the same ethical standards. Neither do they have safety standards. That's the point.

[-] DupaCycki@lemmy.world -1 points 10 hours ago

Everything that gets imported into the EU has to pass the exact same safety tests as everything made inside the EU. That's literally what the regulation states.

As for ethical standards - as I said, sanction companies that do not come close to European standards and severely violate workers' rights. If they meet them or are relatively close - nothing needs to be done.

[-] tardigrade@scribe.disroot.org 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

China has been circumventing European safety and technical standards in all sectors, including in consumer sectors (Temu, Shein, AliExpress, ...).

Ethical standards are even worse, and China is blocking any attempts for transparent supply chain. China doesn't appear to be even willing to play by the rules.

One recent example comes from Italy: Italian machine tool sector wants tougher EU trade rules on China, demands same technical and safety standards required of European manufacturers

[-] DupaCycki@lemmy.world -1 points 6 hours ago

Just like I replied to you in a different thread... Temu, Shein, and AliExpress do not sell industrial machinery.

The link you provided is an article about what a European corporate lobby says and wants. Lobbies are not trustworthy or reliable sources of information.

Any sources for any of the other claims made? How is China circumventing the safety standards?

this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
24 points (87.5% liked)

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