EV-loving Slovenia ponders effect of EU tariffs on Chinese imports

Slovenia is a country of modest size and population, but with quite progressive eco-consciousness. That's the most likely reason why Slovenia is one of the few EU countries that hasn't encountered a widespread recent drop in EV sales. 

Slovenia is also one of the few EU countries that maintained subsidies for purchasing EV vehicles. And when the EU voted on the introduction of the tariffs on imports on Chinese EVs, Slovenia was one of five EU countries that voted against, with 10 countries in favor and 12 abstaining. 

After that October 4 vote, the European Commission deliberated for most of the month before confirming that it would be implementing tariffs of up to 45.3 percent on Chinese EVs. Dejan Židan, Slovenia's state secretary of the Ministry of the Economy, Tourism and Sport, told CGTN there are many reasons why Slovenia voted against the tariffs.

"If we want to maintain a good standard of people in Slovenia and in Europe, we must have as many friends as possible, as many common allies as possible," he said. "We have to develop new industries and improve in the old ones and we cannot afford trade wars. In trade wars, everyone loses."

Based in a Ljubljana suburb, Marko Femc is Slovenia's top dealer of Chinese cars. He felt the tariffs were inevitable because of a dramatic year-on-year drop of 36 percent in EV sales across the EU. That mostly affected the European producers of expensive EVs, and he's trying to remain bullish about the tariffs' effect on his sales.

"It will impact, but not significantly," he said. "What will happen is that Europe will have more time for its car industry to adapt or try to survive these better quality and lower prices that are coming from the Chinese producers."

He's not the only observer to think that Chinese car producers have outpaced European counterparts in the area of mobility industry inventions, resulting in better quality and lower prices than those of the European producers.

"We fell asleep in development," said Andrej Brglez, Director of the Institute of Civilisation and Culture. "China went in a direction that we did not perceive as our own development direction, and we have to find our own solutions.

"In this challenging global economic environment, we have to earn the trust of our customers so that they will also buy European cars."