EU Retailers Blast Chinese Textile Deal

European retailers are unhappy with a proposed deal designed to break a textile import dispute with China.

Officials from the 25-member European Union were meeting Wednesday to vote on a proposal that would release 80 million Chinese garments in customs warehouses move to EU markets, the International Herald Tribune reported.

While the proposal is expected to be passed, leading European retailers charged Tuesday that Brussels officials gave textile-producing countries like France special incentives to win their backing.

Specifically, the Foreign Trade Association said a clause to let into Europe goods still in China for which retailers had contracts — and for which Chinese producers already had been paid — may have been cut from the negotiated agreement to satisfy EU textile producers.

While Paris opposed allowing any Chinese garments out of EU customs warehouses, it ended up going along to help German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s tough re-election campaign. The deal would mean less expensive clothes for European consumers.