Greens, big business ally in EU lamps trade fight

William Schomberg

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Environmentalists and some of Europe's biggest companies have formed an unusual alliance to try to stop the European Union from extending anti-dumping duties on Chinese energy-saving light bulbs for one more year.

Environmental group WWF, Swedish retailer Ikea and Dutch electronics giant Philips are lobbying EU governments to reject the proposal when trade experts meet for what diplomats said was set to be a stormy meeting on Friday.

WWF wrote to the British government this week, criticizing the plan to continue the duties as inconsistent with EU climate change policies, "narrowly protectionist" and discouraging for manufacturers of energy-saving goods in developing countries.

"Any continuation will result in an unnecessary slowing down of the shift from incandescent lamps ... that could contribute to savings of 23 million tones of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to 0.5 percent of EU greenhouse gas emissions," the letter, obtained by Reuters, said.

The duties were introduced for five years in 2001, adding up to 66 percent to the price of Chinese bulbs entering the EU. They were due to expire in 2006 but Germany's Osram asked for them to be continued.

Ikea, which says it sells about 20 percent of the EU's energy-saving light bulbs, wrote to EU trade experts warning it saw "huge problems in sourcing a sufficient number of low energy light bulbs at a fair and low price" if the duties remain.

EU factories account for barely 20 percent of low-energy bulbs sold in the EU and demand is set to rise as Brussels presses on with plans to phase out old-style incandescent bulbs.

The light bulbs case is seen as a test of the EU's response to many companies' reliance on cheap imports from China, and the bloc's ability to align its trade and environmental policies.