The European Solar Manufacturing Council has co-signed a joint statement with 22 other European industry associations, urging the European Commission to apply its trade defence toolbox faster and more decisively against unfair trade practices and state-driven overcapacity.
Brussels, 27 May 2026 — From steel and cement to chemicals, glass, aluminium and solar, 23 European industry associations that rarely make common cause have put their names to a single demand: the EU must ensure that competition on its market is fair. Their Joint Industry Statement on the need for more ambition in EU trade defence warns that unfair trade practices and structural overcapacity in non-market economies have become a growing threat to Europe’s industrial backbone, from upstream to downstream sectors alike.
The signatories trace these distortions to state-led industrial policies — direct subsidies, tax incentives and other forms of support — that allow state-backed producers to sustain excess output and export it into the EU at underpriced levels. European manufacturers, already carrying high energy costs and ambitious environmental and regulatory obligations, are left to compete on an unlevel playing field, which the statement identifies as one of the key drivers of Europe’s flagging competitiveness. The associations are explicit that they are not asking to be shielded from competition, but to have it made fair.
For solar manufacturing, the dynamic is all too familiar. Underpriced imports backed by state support have repeatedly outpaced Europe’s ability to respond, and delays in political action translates directly into plant closures and the permanent loss of industrial capacity and jobs. The statement notes that waiting times at the case-initiation stage alone now extend over several months, leaving EU producers exposed long before any investigation formally begins.
“A fair and level playing field it is the precondition for any industrial base to survive in Europe,” said Christoph Podewils, Secretary General of ESMC. “Solar manufacturers have already learned what it costs to act too late. The Commission has the tools; what is missing is the speed and the staff to use them in time.”
The signatories call on the European Commission to take four concrete steps:
- Properly staff DG Trade. The Commission’s trade defence services are severely understaffed, both in absolute terms and compared with the EU’s main international partners. Reinforcing them is described as the single most important short-term action.
- Act faster and more preventively. Existing instruments should be used earlier, before injury becomes irreversible, and applied across the entire value chain — preventing distortions from simply shifting from one product segment to the next in a costly game of “whack-a-mole”.
- Consider a new instrument. A dedicated, WTO-compliant tool should be considered to address state-induced distortions and their spillovers in a targeted manner.
- Use the Foreign Subsidies Regulation more strategically. The FSR should look beyond individual transactions and procurement procedures to established patterns of non-market behaviour across sectors and value chains.
Implementing these steps, the signatories conclude, would be a start in aligning EU trade policy with the realities of today’s global trading system — and in giving European industry, solar included, a fair chance to compete.
The full Joint Industry Statement and the complete list of signatories are available at https://esmc.solar/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-05-27_Joint-Industry-Statement-on-more-ambition-in-EU-Trade-Defence_May_2026.pdf