NEWS: Tsunami-hit Thais told: Buy six Airbus A380 planes or face EU tariffs

The European Commission has told Thailand that unless it buys 6 Airbus A380 planes, its fishing industry will be hit by tariffs. Against the backdrop of tsunami relief aide, trade authorities in Brussels have been hoping to announce an jets for prawn deal as early as next month.



One has to wonder how many of these blackmail type deals has been struck to support the great European jobs program a.k.a 'The EU Deal" that is Airbus. Its not just aviation, the article also point out a punitive tariff being leveled on Thailand producers of cumarin. Used in perfume, the tariff are being enacted to protect the sole source within the EU (A French company) from having to compete. But given the generous nature of the launch aid and other direct subsidies Airbus gets, I am not surprised if this is not extended to every E.U. venture.

You're too kind, FredT. That's nothing nless than blatant extortion.

As i keep on saying, the EU is nothing short of selfish, evil and untrustworthy. Trying to blatantly extort money from a nation that may never fully be able to recover from the Tsunami just shows the low level that this so called gulag Empire called the EU will resort to to stamp its place in history.

The EU deserves the maximum world wide condemnation.

You cant be so naieve to think this is the first time this has happend and is unique to the EU. Its International Economics at its purest form. Countries dont extend charity to trade tables, thats for we public to do.

Its always happend and always will happen, disaster or not.

By the way the biggest proponent of these tactics is the USA

Wether its the EU, or another country, that doesnt make this right. To extort money from a ravaged country is a pretty low form of life.

Thats true but its a little late to start drawing lines in the sand and saying the EU has crossed it. Embattled nations do it to other embattled nations, large nations do it to other large nations.

Its capitalisms fault, change that first

In other words they want the money given by the people for Tsunami relief, back, and with 500% interest.

A380 super jumbo jet: $280 million
6 A380 super jumbo jet: $1.68 bililon

However, it appears Thailand is getting ripped off even further, the price of a single super umbo jet for Thiland is $400 million.

I told you this display of compassion was nothing more than a facade. The NWO is anything but compassionate.

[edit on 22-1-2005 by Indigo_Child]

Maybe this is the "level playing field" that Rice was talking about.

Ahhh nothing like the fresh smell of globalization in the air....

This kind of "diplomacy" is not new from either side of the atlantic.

Originally posted by rustiswordz
The EU deserves the maximum world wide condemnation.

As opposed to bush is suppose who of course is gallantly fighting to "end all tyrrany".

I hope he is implying to start by committing suicide, it would me a most noble act.

But "an sich" you are right, but like i said above this kind of "diplomacy" is not new for any western power.

I have sent an email to BBC news to see if they have any information on this and to ask if they intend reporting it.

I am not expecting an instant response if any, but I will let people here know if I recieve a reply.

Personally I am surprised by this and somewhat disgusted. There must be more to this.

I agree that as reported, it sucks. Unfortunately, this was covered in last weeks Mail on Sundays Financial Mail suppliment. The tarifs agreed in August 2004, enacted in October 2004, and came into force on New Years eve 2004. Peter Mandleson has already stated that the tarifs would not be collected, and they would be repealed at the earliest convienience during the next EU Parliamentary session because of the hardship caused by the Tsunami.

The A380 deal would have concluded a deal that was already well under discussion at the time, this was just a 'you can get out of this by...'. Nothing illegal, or unethical about it.

In otherwords, find another story.

The tariff is because Thailand uses International Aid to dump shrimp on the markets at well below what it costs them to produce it, which is pretty much illegal under every law, but nothing will be done because they are a third world country.

Oh, but LOOK at this!

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced last July it was putting in place tariffs on imported freshwater shrimp – also called prawns – on the United States.

-----

The tariffs affect six countries – China, Vietnam, Ecuador, Brazil, Thailand and India. Tariff amounts vary from country to country, ranging from 8 percent to 113 percent.

Source: www.agrinews-pubs.com...
Source: www.ita.doc.gov...

So, under the EU deal, the Thais get what they wanted and were negotiating for anyway, under the US deal, the Thais get screwed anyway.

The EU has instead slapped a tariff of 12 per cent on its fish - three times that imposed on prawns from Malaysia, its neighbour. This is still less than the US tariff on Thai prawns: 97 per cent.

97%?
Yikes!
What happened to free trade man?

How about the US removing some of those tariffs against Sri Lanka and Indonesia too?

Guardian
On Oxfam's figures, the US duty levied on Sri Lanka for exports of clothing and textiles alone was US$244 million in 2003.

The EU charged US$77 million in the same year. In Indonesia, the corresponding charges were US$426 million and US$180 million. Tariffs are so harsh that the charity estimates the overall income lost to the developing world at US$40 billion. Western generosity is woefully selective.

I agree that tying the removal of tariff's to the purchase of goods from Airbus is tacky but at least they are giving them a possible way out.

[edit on 22-1-2005 by AceOfBase]

As a European , I am dissapointed how Europe (most notably , the French (the big Airbus assembly is in Toulouse remember)who never really lost their colonial dreams and sense of grandeur since the day of Napoleon) ) is picking up on muscle style bussiness practice that used to be the trademark of how america used to spread the "free" market under the guise of democracy.

Naturally the French are the ideological driving force also by lifting the arms embargo on China and therefor I expect the Europe and America to alienate further and this will climax in proxy resourcewars to be fought in Africa, backed by american versus Chinese/European companies.



[edit on 22-1-2005 by Countermeasures]

Richard, as you said the tarriffs for the US for Thai shirim are higher than the EU. However, Thailand was never threatened with "Buy Liza Minelli DVD or we will jack things up. Nor was it buy Boeing.

Thai airlines currently has a mixed fleet, but its long hual aircraft is all Boeing for the moment with 10 A340's due this year and next. One has to wonder how the order for those was extorted.

You can be as casual as you want about this, but this is far from a business deal. This is state level extortion at its finist. But nothing is too good for the "The EU Deal" eh?

Originally posted by FredT
Richard, as you said the tarriffs for the US for Thai shirim are higher than the EU. However, Thailand was never threatened with "Buy Liza Minelli DVD or we will jack things up. Nor was it buy Boeing.

Thai airlines currently has a mixed fleet, but its long hual aircraft is all Boeing for the moment with 10 A340's due this year and next. One has to wonder how the order for those was extorted.

You can be as casual as you want about this, but this is far from a business deal. This is state level extortion at its finist. But nothing is too good for the "The EU Deal" eh?

FredT, I was going to reply to you with a sane answer, but its obvious that you are bigotted and will forever be biased. I refuse to discuss this or any other Airbus/EU related issue with you again. Oh, and 97% tariff certainly is higher than 6%.

My last word on the matter is this:

Tariffs were to be imposed on Thailand shrimp because they used International funding to dump shrimp at well below production cost.

Thailand was in A380 purchase negotiations before the tariffs were talked about.

Thailand was offered the chance of concluding the purchase of the A380s to preclude imposition of tariffs.

Theres nothing unethical, evil, illegal or extortion about that. Thailand was in trouble, they were given an out by concluding an already existing deal.

Or shall we talk about the US and foreign aid? No, of course you wouldnt want us to go there because that opens up a whole can of extorted worms.

Good night.

[edit on 22/1/2005 by RichardPrice]

FredT and rustiswordz,

Can you explain the difference between EU policy and U.S. foreign policy? as if the U.S. doesn't do this kind of deals with developing countries???

If the Thais are illegally dumping their shrimp into Western markets, then that should be dealt with using tariffs as the U.S. has done, not by using illegal arm twisting with their jet sales. This will hurt other nations and companies such as Boeing. Free trade is supposed to be free trade, not a complex system of tit-for-tat illegal deals.

All replies...this whole thread is rendered useless considering the deal was discussed already before the disaster. So where is your tsunami-cheat now? What a community.

Originally posted by shoo
All replies...this whole thread is rendered useless considering the deal was discussed already before the disaster. So where is your tsunami-cheat now? What a community.

The whole point of this was that the EU is using thier levearage to push products on the Thai's. The fact that they are still pushing this after the tsunami makes it worse. But really now pre or post tsunami its clearly extorsion and clearly paint Airbus and the EU is a whole new light in regards to business practices. So despite the fact that the governments of the EU swear they have divested themselves of AIRBUS, its too hard to turn thier backs on the biggest jobs program the world has seen.