The Commission also interpreted the silence of two countries — Czechia and Greece — as assent, bringing the total to 12. On a weighted basis, that adds up to more than 60 percent of the EU population in favor of the duties. Czechia has a sizable car industry and could conceivably vote against if push comes to shove.
In the “against” camp were just four countries — Cyprus, Malta, Hungary and Slovakia — while the remaining 11 abstained.
Germany was among those on the fence, but that is due to domestic politics: Scholz’s center-left coalition is split on the duties, with his Social Democrats adamantly opposed and Economy Minister Robert Habeck’s Greens at the very least ambivalent. Getting to “no” would first require the Germans to agree among themselves.
Habeck invited auto bosses to a crisis “summit” on Monday amid calls by Germany’s main industry lobby to stop the EV duties. Little resulted from the pow-wow, with Habeck saying: “Better no action than quick fixes.”
Would it be enough to flip the floating voters?
If Berlin wanted to garner enough support to block the EV tariffs, it would first need to flip the “undecideds” into the “no” camp.
But, with the exception of Germany, the countries that abstained in July are too small to make a meaningful difference — between them they only account for 15 percent of the EU population. This means that the “no” camp would still fall well short of the population threshold required to win a qualified majority vote.
