The European Union hasn’t yet finished rolling out its electronic licensing regime for dual-use exports but hopes to finish the project next year, said Marcello Irlando, an export control official with the European Commission. “Obviously, we are working on it,” Irlando said during the EU's annual export control forum this week. The effort is aimed at simplifying dual-use license applications through a website portal, and has so far been tested in Latvia and Romania, Irlando said. Officials had hoped to add other countries and finalize the effort this year (see 1912240008), but Irlando said countries are still being added. Several EU member states have asked about joining, he said, adding that the commission hopes to deploy the system in Italy, Belgium, Slovenia and potentially others next year.

The European Commission this week proposed a new tool to respond to unfair economic and trade practices, including discriminatory import duties, boycotts and other “coercive practices.” The European Union has increasingly become a “target of deliberate economic pressure in recent years,” the commission said Dec. 8, and the tool could allow it to “better defend itself.”

The European Union extended its sanctions regime on the Congo for another year, until Dec. 12, 2022, the European Council said. The restrictive measures apply to 10 individuals and subject them to an asset freeze and travel ban. Persons and entities in the EU are forbidden from making funds available to listed individuals, either directly or indirectly.

China has told multinational corporations to break off ties with Lithuania or risk being shut out of the Chinese market, Reuters reported Dec. 9. The escalation comes after Lithuania's ruling coalition agreed in November 2020 to support "those fighting for freedom" in Taiwan, publicly challenging China's claim to the island nation. Further, the European Union noted that Lithuanian shipments are not being cleared through Chinese customs and that import applications from Lithuania are being rejected.

The United Kingdom's international trade secretary presented Parliament a revised version of the licensing criteria for strategic export controls, the Department for International Trade said Dec. 8. The licensing criteria, known as the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, will be applied to all license decisions on goods, software and technology subject to export controls. The revisions include an "enhanced" definition of military end-use to boost its effectiveness by permitting the control on a case-by-case basis of non-listed items intended for use by military, paramilitary, security or police forces in a destination subject to an arms embargo. Exemptions will be provided for medical supplies and food, clothing and or other consumer goods generally available to the public. China will also be added to the list of destinations subject to military end-use controls, the DIT said.

The European Union imposed a definitive antidumping duty on aluminum converter foil from China, the European Commission said Dec. 8. The duty applies to aluminum "converter foil of a thickness of less than 0,021 mm, not backed, not further worked than rolled, in rolls of a weight exceeding 10 kg" and includes exclusions for five products that are all various types of aluminum household foil. Rates will apply to Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co. at 28.5%; Xiamen Xiashun Aluminium Foil Co., 15.4%; Yantai Donghai Aluminium Foil Co., 24.7%; and other cooperating companies listed in the Annex, 23.6%. All other companies will be assigned a 28.5% AD rate. Aluminum is an "important commodity on the EU market with a market value of 630 million Euro," European Commission said, serving the packaging and electric car battery industries, in particular. "The tariffs will help defend EU companies and workers in this sector: the imports of aluminium converter foil from China will no longer enjoy an unfair advantage over the Union industries and will compete on an equal grounding," the commission said.

The European Union will continue imposing antidumping duties on birch plywood from Russia after conducting a changed market conditions investigation, the European Commission said in a Dec. 6 regulation. After the commission imposed the provisional AD duty on the Russian birch plywood in June, several parties complained that a change of market conditions had occurred after the investigation period and that the imposition of the duties would not be justified. The commission said Dec. 3 that an inquiry found that while the EU industry had benefited from market changes, it had not benefited enough to warrant suspending the duties. The decision entered into force Dec. 7.

Belarus has announced retaliatory measures against countries that have recently sanctioned it, imposing a ban on the import of certain goods originating in the United Kingdom, the European Union, the U.S. and Canada, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Dec. 6. The measures also include restrictions on U.K. and EU air carriers, travel bans for certain officials in each of the sanctioned states and "other non-public steps," the foreign ministry said. Another countermeasure will be to "strengthen economic integration with the Russian Federation, as well as build strong trade and economic ties with" Eurasian Economic Union states and others.

The United Kingdom is looking to ramp up its trade engagement with individual U.S. states while it awaits resumed talks on a broader U.K.-U.S. trade deal, Britain's International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan told Bloomberg. “One of my ministers, Penny Mordaunt, is presently in California, having exactly those conversations, and she’ll be also visiting Georgia and Tennessee, South Carolina, and Oklahoma,” Trevelyan said Dec. 6. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has long touted a U.K.-U.S. trade deal as a benefit of the U.K. leaving the European Union.

The European Union started a review of its antidumping and countervailing duty orders on biodiesel from Canada following a Canadian exporting producer's request for an exemption, the European Commission said in a Dec. 7 notice. The review will cover the AD/CVD orders on biodiesel consigned from Canada, "whether declared as originating in Canada or not, for the purposes of determining the possibility of granting an exemption from those measures to one Canadian exporting producer, repealing the anti-dumping duty with regard to imports from that exporting producer and making imports from that exporting producer subject to registration." The exporter, Verbio Diesel Canada Corporation, claims it didn't export the product under review to the EU during the investigation period.