EU/RUSSIA : MOSCOW TAKES EU TO WTO OVER ENERGY DUTIES.

• Position: World Trade Organization

Russia filed a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against an EU-imposed tax on a range of Russian imports on the grounds that Russian manufacturers were benefiting from lower energy prices. Moscow believes that these "corrective energy" measures that have been applied to a range of chemical and metallurgical products (such as fertilisers and pipelines) constitute a violation of the anti-dumping provisions in the WTO agreement. The procedure, opened on 23 December last year, was the first one to be launched by Russia since its accession to the WTO in August 2012. Last July, the EU filed a complaint with the WTO over the recycling fee Russia enforced on imported vehicles. Relations between Moscow and Brussels have been strained of late over a set of dossiers involving Ukraine and the arrest of Greenpeace activists.

The prejudice experienced by Russian manufacturers will result in the loss of "hundreds of millions of dollars every year," stated a spokesperson for the Russian minister of economy. The EU, he continued, calculates the cost of merchandise in accordance with the tariff on European hydrocarbons, without taking Russian rates into account. In Europe, it is believed that the price of Russian gas is undervalued. The EU, added the spokesperson, has also adopted several measures to protect its market from Russian products, particularly for all imports from the metallurgical and...