Trade relations between the EU and Turkey

Question for written answer  E-000298/2021
to the Commission
Rule 138
Herbert Dorfmann (PPE)

The Apparatebau GmbH company based in Italy is specialised in the manufacture of hinges and telescopic runners for ovens. The company has had a supply relationship with a Turkish client for years. When these are exported, the Turkish customs authorities impose punitive tariffs of USD 1.64 per kilo of imported goods under the country’s anti-dumping measures. This means that the company is no longer competitive on the Turkish market.

In 2017 the company was asked, in a letter from the Turkish Ministry of Commerce, to provide, within 30 days, an explanation and a description of the production process and supply chain in order to show whether the product is manufactured in Italy. The company did not keep to the deadline. Countless subsequent attempts by local customs consultants and Turkish lawyers to secure the permission of the Turkish Ministry of Commerce for customs-free deliveries to Turkey have all failed.

Does the Commission consider it acceptable for the Turkish authorities to reject requests by companies from the EU without valid reasons without giving the companies a second chance?

Does the Commission believe that this kind of behaviour on the part of the Turkish authorities – denying a company from the EU the opportunity to restore its competitiveness on the Turkish market because of a missed deadline – is in the spirit of the trade agreement between the EU and Turkey?