BERLIN (Reuters) - Europe needs to prevent China from flooding the bloc's market with massively subsidized electric vehicles, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Berlin on Wednesday.
"Fair competition is good. What we don't like is when China floods our market with massively subsidized electric cars. And we have to tackle this, we have to protect our industry," said von der Leyen, who met Chinese President Xi Jinping alongside French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week.
The European Union is currently conducting an anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles to determine whether to impose punitive tariffs on them.
The investigation, officially launched in October, can last up to 13 months. The Commission can impose provisional anti-subsidy duties nine months after the start of the probe.
Von der Leyen, speaking at the Christian Democrats' party convention, also urged EU finance ministers to finally pull together to complete a long-discussed capital markets union.
"A better integrated capital markets union could make it possible to invest up to 470 billion euros ($505.25 billion) more per year in our start-ups and SMEs," she said.
($1 = 0.9302 euros)