Brussels has launched a subsidy investigation into Chinese wind turbine companies as it steps up efforts to protect its domestic industry from cheap competition, reports the Financial Times. Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s top competition enforcer, said the probe would examine whether Chinese companies participating in wind parks across Europe may have benefited from state support from Beijing.
The investigation will use the European Commission’s new powers designed to clamp down on market-distorting subsidies from foreign governments as Brussels seeks to defend itself from unfair competition from abroad, including Beijing.
Investigators will examine “the conditions for the development of wind parks in Spain, Greece, France, Romania and Bulgaria,” Vestager said.