EU FINANCE MINISER have agreed to scrap a bloc-wide duty exemption on low-value orders from the likes of retail giants Temu and Shein to help tackle a flood of cheap Chinese imports.

The Journal has previously reported on the influx of secondhand clothing from Shein in Irish secondhand and charity shops as a byproduct of shoppers here buying ‘hauls’ of clothing at next-to-nothing prices. 

This kind of ultra-cheap shopping from online clothing brands has to date been in part enabled by the lack of a levy on cheaper parcels coming from China. 

Today, there is no levy on packages worth less than €150 imported directly to consumers in the 27-nation bloc, in many cases via Chinese-founded platforms.

Member states including France and the EU executive hope the duty exemption can be done away with from the start of next year, rather than 2028 as proposed earlier this year.

The EU’s 27 member states will work on a “simple, temporary solution to enable earlier implementation”, an EU official said.

Ministers are due to discuss and approve a proposal during their next meeting on 12 December. 

France welcomed the ministers’ decision, saying its efforts to reach an agreement had “paid off”.

“This is a key step for the protection of European consumers and the internal market to fight more effectively to prevent dangerous products and those that do not comply with our European regulations entering,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told AFP.

“We have taken a major step for the economic sovereignty of the European Union,” he added.

EU trade spokesman Olof Gill confirmed the bloc wanted to tackle the rise in small packages.

“We’ve seen exponential growth in e-commerce in recent years – 4.6 billion parcels were imported into the EU last year, and recent figures confirm this upward trend,” Gill told reporters.

Alongside the step agreed, the EU executive in May proposed a small package handling fee worth €2.

EU member states have yet to agree on the fee’s level, but hope it will apply from late 2026.

Fed up with waiting, some member states have already moved forward with their own plans, including Romania, which has imposed a five-euro fee on small parcels.