The EU executive is canvassing EU governments' views in an "advisory" vote, which the Commission is expected to take into account when deciding whether to follow up with definitive duties in what is the EU's highest profile trade case yet.

The Commission says the vote is confidential and it will not disclose the outcome. Government sources said on Monday that Italy had voted in favour and that Spain would do the same in their written submissions.

Sweden plans to abstain, trade minister Johan Forssell told Reuters. Germany was also expected to abstain, sources said on Friday. One of them said this was in the spirit of "critical solidarity" with the Commission. A number of EU governments have been hesitating.

A decade ago, the EU executive did not impose tariffs on Chinese solar panels after it became clear that a large group of EU members did not support them. EU manufacturing subsequently collapsed.

The Commission will continue its investigation and determine whether to propose definitive duties that would typically apply for five years.

If it does push for tariffs, they will come up for a binding vote among the EU members, and would be blocked if a qualified majority of 15 member countries representing 65% of the EU population vote against.

The near four-month window before then will allow Brussels and Beijing to negotiate a possible resolution to tariffs that would hit Chinese producers such as BYD, Geely and and Western automakers such as Tesla and BMW. Beijing has threatened wide-ranging retaliation.

Meanwhile, Tesla raised prices of its Model 3 cars in European countries including Germany, the Netherlands and Spain by about €1,500 after the EU imposed tariffs on EVs made in China.

Tesla, which makes the Model 3 in Shanghai and is the top exporter of EVs from China, had warned in June it might lift prices due to the tariffs imposed on July 4 by the European Commission to counter what it described as a potential flood of unfairly subsidised EVs.

- Reuters