Brussels Unstitched

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Returning from vacation is never easy, but Peter Mandelson may have found it worse than most. The European Union's Trade Commissioner came back to work last week to discover 47 million Chinese-made sweaters, 17 million pairs of men's trousers, 6 million T shirts and more than 8 million bras locked up in customs warehouses around Europe—and retailers across the Continent calling for his head. The enormous pile of impounded clothing was the result of a June deal that Mandelson struck with Beijing that limited some Chinese textile exports to the E.U. At the time, Europe's textile industry, backed by the French, Spanish and other governments, was screaming for protection from a surge in low-cost Chinese garments following the end of an international quota system last December. European retailers, increasingly dependent on China as the key source for clothing, never liked the accord. But their disquiet has turned to fury. Big chains including Britain's Next, Germany's Metro and Sweden's H&M complain about not receiving their fall and Christmas stocks. "Textile retailers are looking at empty shelves," warned the Foreign Trade Association, a Brussels-based group that represents E.U. retailers.

That may be an overreaction. Such claims "are quite patently absurd," complains William Lakin, director general of Euratex, which represents E.U. textile producers, because there's plenty of other merchandise made in the E.U. and elsewhere available. Lakin says that any fixes to the original deal should be minimal. Still, the prevailing wind has changed. Mandelson, now under pressure from more free trade-minded governments including Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, last week announced that there was "a serious glitch" in his June deal and dispatched a team of officials to Beijing to try to renegotiate part of it. Even if the Chinese agree to new terms and the impounded clothing is released, it's enough to make Mandelson long for another holiday.