Buy Airbuses or we will tariff you into oblivion?

[Gladi]

Bright day
I have just uncovered this.

Tsunami-hit Thais told: Buy six planes or face EU tariffs

FRASER NELSON
POLITICAL EDITOR

TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry.

While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft.

The demand will come as a deep embarrassment to Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner, whose officials started the negotiation before the disaster struck Thailand - killing tens of thousands of people and damaging its economy.

While aid workers from across Europe are helping to rebuild Thai livelihoods, trade officials in Brussels are concluding a jets-for-prawns deal, which they had hoped to announce next month.

As the world’s largest producer of prawns, Thailand has become so efficient that its wares are half the price of those caught by Norway, the main producer of prawns for the EU.

To ensure the Thais cannot compete, EU officials five years ago removed its shrimp industry from the EU’s generalised system of preferential tariffs - designed to share Western wealth with developing countries by trade.

The EU has instead slapped a tariff of 12 per cent on its fish - three times that imposed on prawns from Malaysia, its neighbour. This is still less than the US tariff on Thai prawns: 97 per cent.

The prawn tax is one in a series of protectionist measures expected to cost east Asia some £130 million each year - money being taken from its economies while EU citizens donate millions in charity.

Five days after the tsunami struck, the EU legislated against Thailand by slapping a new tariff designed to extinguish its booming trade in cumarin, a plant extract used in perfume.

On 31 December, the EU imposed duties of €3,480 (£2,430) a tonne for Thai exports of cumarin - a move entirely designed to protect Rhodia, a French chemicals firm and the EU’s only producer of cumarin.

Oxfam has attacked the tariffs, saying: "When countries are lying prostrate before us, it is criminal to continue to tax them on what they sell."

Sri Lanka has already pleaded to be exempt from EU and US textiles tariffs as it tries to recover.

In itself this would be be nothing exceptional. But why would EU protect Norway? And push for it after tsunami? All of it looks prettz stupid right now to me. So does somebody here knows more abpout the deals and the source?

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Mercantalism is live and well.

 

[bigfatron]

trade tariffs are BAD in almost all cases - they are especially bad when they favour rich countries over poor.

I'm embarrassed to be part of this...

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Well, if you google for the same story and don't believe the usual UK anti-EU BS ; you may find that taxes are in effect since 1999, and Thailand now demands ending that taxation or they would cancel the deal for 6 A-380 they ordered. Quite the other way around, me thinks.

http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/041125054347.popezj1g
http://news.airwise.com/stories/2004/11/1101205513.html

Of course, it's up to you which source you believe, but a short look for other EU articles on scotsman.com tells a lot about their agenda...

Oh, and Thailand wasn't hit that hard by the Tsunami (compared to Indonesia and Sri Lanka). Plus, even if it would be true, I would thouroghly support such a tax - FYI, the Shrimps industry is the main reason why there are nearly no mangroves left at their coastline, and the lack of mangroves was the sole reason for such horrible death tolls. And that industry by no means fulfills the EU environmental standards. And the US taxation is 8 times higher. And Norway isn't EU member anyway - but sticks to their standards.

 

[SeleucusNicator]

Imagine what the Europeans would say if this were the United States forcing the Thais to buy Boeings. I look forward to seeing some of our foreign friends try and justify this one without abandoning their percieved moral high ground.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

SN, please read that article. The US taxation on Thai Shrimps is 97% already; the EU takes only 12%. And it wasn't that EU who connected that Airbus deal with the Shrimps issue, it was the Thai gov.
I would be utterly surprised if the US would drop the taxation if Thailand would threaten to cancel to their current deal with Boeing .

 

[Gladi]

Well, if you google for the same story and don't believe the usual UK anti-EU BS ; you may find that taxes are in effect since 1999, and Thailand now demands ending that taxation or they would cancel the deal for 6 A-380 they ordered. Quite the other way around, me thinks.

http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/041125054347.popezj1g
http://news.airwise.com/stories/2004/11/1101205513.html

Of course, it's up to you which source you believe, but a short look for other EU articles on scotsman.com tells a lot about their agenda...

Oh, and Thailand wasn't hit that hard by the Tsunami (compared to Indonesia and Sri Lanka). Plus, even if it would be true, I would thouroghly support such a tax - FYI, the Shrimps industry is the main reason why there are nearly no mangroves left at their coastline, and the lack of mangroves was the sole reason for such horrible death tolls. And that industry by no means fulfills the EU environmental standards. And the US taxation is 8 times higher. And Norway isn't EU member anyway - but sticks to their standards.

Ah thanks! I suspected slander.

 

[Keirador]

The only thing I like about Bush is that he's for free trade.

 

[Scuffer]

Imagine what the Europeans would say if this were the United States forcing the Thais to buy Boeings. I look forward to seeing some of our foreign friends try and justify this one without abandoning their percieved moral high ground.

They'd probably write:

Imagine what the Americans would say if this were the EU was forcing the Thais to buy Airbus. I look forward to seeing some of our American try and justify this one without abandoning their percieved moral high ground.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

The only thing I like about Bush is that he's for free trade.

You have 97% taxation on Thai Shrimps, and dare to tell the US Gov is for free trade? And the EU with its lousy 12% are protectionist bastards?

 

[JohnRM]

Wow, I didn't know there was such a thing as bad press for the Europeans.

 

[cogswell]

Hey, aren't we all just prawns in the chess game that is international commerce?

 

[Jawz II]

big purchases like airplanes are very often politics, and not which plane is the best one, you wouldnt belive the things us government has done in the past to sell planes, including sending powell to lie his guts out

 

[Keirador]

You have 97% taxation on Thai Shrimps, and dare to tell the US Gov is for free trade? And the EU with its lousy 12% are protectionist bastards?

I didn't say the US Government wasn't full of protectionist bastards; it is- stop hitting your head against that wall or you'll die. I said the only thing I like about Bush is that he's for free trade, which he is, even if free-trade reforms haven't made it very far through the governmental structure yet.