In a survey of 523 firms in all 27 EU member states conducted by Europressedienst, 65 percent of respondents said that the current EU investigation into the dumping of Chinese PV panels was justified. Only 18 percent came out against protective tariffs that would increase the price of Chinese solar modules.
In the UK, the number was significantly lower with only 46.6 percent believing that the investigation was justified. Nearly 43 percent of UK installers thought that possible tariffs were a good thing in protecting European manufacturing from cut price imports whilst 32.1 percent did not.
One third of UK businesses said that tariffs would not have any impact on the UK market. 10.7 percent said that they would change procurement procedures and 17.9 percent would try and reduce the purchase price of other materials. 25 percent would consider making redundancies and 7.1 percent feared closure and insolvency.