A group of leading European retailers and electronics manufacturers have confirmed they are lobbying the EU to ditch punitive trade tariffs on the import of energy-saving light bulbs from China, a move they claim could cut the cost of CFL bulbs by up to 66 per cent.

The group, which includes UK supermarket Tesco, Swedish furniture giant Ikea and Dutch electronics group Philips, claims the anti-dumping tariffs are inflating the price of energy-saving bulbs and are in direct contradiction to the EU's commitment to curb carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020.

"We have urged the European Commission to make an early and clear decision to end the dumping duties on low-energy light bulbs imported from China," said Katherine Symonds, sustainability manager at Tesco, adding that the tariffs were leading to "artificially inflated" prices that make it harder for customers to buy low-energy bulbs.

Advocates of low-energy bulbs claim that while they prove more cost-effective than traditional incandescent alternatives over the whole life of the bulb, adoption is hampered by higher up-front costs.

The tariffs were introduced in 2002 to protect European manufacturers of CFLs, however critics claim that many of the bulbs now imported into the union are manufactured by European firms with facilities in China, and as such the tariffs are now outdated.