“We have to follow through now,” said Daniel Caspary, the head of the CDU delegation to the European Parliament.
While the expected tariff announcement by the Commission would only be preliminary and have to be confirmed by a vote of EU countries later this year to establish permanent anti-subsidy duties against China, one official familiar with Berlin’s position conceded that Scholz might struggle to rally enough support to block the final, definitive tariffs.
Doing so might require Berlin to team up with countries like Hungary, which has gained the dubious reputation of being Beijing’s proxy, and cause a direct clash with France. What’s more, the chancellor may lack agreement in his ruling coalition to vote against such tariffs, as Habeck has endorsed them — as long as the EU probe is done with sufficient scrutiny.
One EU diplomat said that the true battle over the car tariffs was already lost for Germany last September, the very moment that von der Leyen announced the anti-subsidy probe.
“Behind the scenes, there had been a battle going on between Berlin and Paris whether to announce this or not,” the diplomat said.
The fact that von der Leyen launched the investigation — which the Commission did on its own initiative and not based on a formal request by the industry — meant that her services had already gathered sufficient evidence beforehand that made them confident that the probe would lead to clear findings, the diplomat added.
“You don’t launch such a thing and then say, ‘Oh, sorry, we actually didn’t find anything.’”
