The 25 EU nations failed to reach agreement Wednesday on anti-dumping measures proposed to tackle imports of shoes from China and Vietnam, a spokesman said. "The member states had strongly divided views on the matter," said Peter Power, spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.
The main faultline runs between Europe's economically liberal north, hostile in principle to anti-dumping measures, and the more protectionist south, sympathetic to the views of EU producers.
The EU permanent national representatives (ambassadors) decided to refer the matter to an EU ministers' meeting in Luxembourg on OCtober 5.
The European Commission has sought import duties of 16.5 percent on all Chinese leather shoes, once the current temporary duty on Chinese shoes with leather uppers of 19.4 percent expires on October 6.
It also wants a 10 percent duty imposed on similar shoes from Vietnam. The current duty of 16.8 percent also expires next month.
Last week a compromise proposition from Austria, limiting the measures from the proposed five years to just one year, was criticised by European importers and distributors, hostile to any protectionist measure.;
After a 15-month investigation, the commission found that shoemakers in China and Vietnam unfairly benefited from state aid in the form of soft loans, tax breaks and cheap rents.
China's footwear manufacturers reject the EU's claims.
As Chinese and Vietnamese imports swelled, European footwear production fell by nearly a third in the last five years, costing 40,000 jobs, according to the Commission.
The Commission stresses that the anti-dumping measures affect some 11 percent of shoes sold in the EU and estimates that price rises to consumers will be small.
