The anti-dumping complaint, spearheaded by German manufacturers, accuses rivals in the far east of importing PV cells at below cost in order to gain an upper hand in the market.
The European commission will have 45 days from the filing of any case to decide whether to proceed. The complaint follows in the wake of May’s decision by the EU to impose 30 per cent anti-dumping charges on imported Chinese PV modules following a complaint made by a SolarWorld subsidiary in the USA.
The EU also joined with Japan and the USA earlier in the year to accuse China of restricting the supply of rare earths needed to produce a large number of the world’s electronic goods.