EU import measures could eliminate smaller importers
The EU’s incoming measures impacting steel imports will create a significant additional burden that could put some smaller importers out of business, said speakers at the EUROMETAL Steel Trade Day in Düsseldorf.
The Carbon Border Adjustment Measures (CBAM) as well as the steel safeguard replacement regime will be big challenges many companies are not prepared to take, noted Gabriel Rozenberg of consultancy Cbamboo. There are many trading companies that import at least 100,000 tonnes/year using a small team, which however may be insufficient to deal with the complexity of CBAM, he said.
A similar idea was touched by Yuriy Rudyuk of law firm Van Bael & Bellis. “It will be more difficult for smaller companies to continue in this environment,” Kallanish heard him say at the conference. During the panel discussion concluding the event, meanwhile, Robert Kay of Ferona predicted that “the market may become bigger for a smaller number of players”.
Apart from the financial risk, it is the extra paper work that might require additional manpower to cope with. Rozenberg noted that only a minority of traders have so far even applied for the certification they need to keep importing under CBAM, a step that needs to be taken before April next year.
In the discussion following Rozenberg’s presentation, EUROMETAL’s former director general, George Kirps, pondered how a company can account for unknown CBAM charges, and make these acceptable for an auditor. Rozenberg replied that “you need to make a provision against your future CBAM charge; I don’t know if that is acceptable for an auditor”.
2026, especially, “will be a mess”, as there will be no verified emissions data available yet, Rozenberg noted. “For 12 months you will be in a kind of Lalaland,” he added.
Christian Koehl Germany
CBAM 2.0: Is the EU making compliance easier or just postponing the pain?
Changes have been proposed to Europe’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) that would simplify some processes, and reduce its scope, Kallanish learns from an obtained leaked draft amendment.
While CBAM will still come into force in January 2026, the requirement to purchase certificates will be delayed and payment will be simplified. Certificates will now need to be purchased from February 2027 to cover the previous year, removing the obligation to purchase certifications on a quarterly basis for the first year.
Gabriel Rozenberg, chief executive of software company Cbamboo, says that while the definitive CBAM period will still start in 2026, there is an easing up in term of cash flow and bureaucracy.
Other changes proposed will see more companies now exempt from CBAM’s scope, with the thresholds at 50 tonnes/year or less than 100 t/y of embodied CO2 emissions of imported goods. This move is believed to remove around 90% of companies from the mechanism’s scope.
EU documents show that for the first year of CBAM’s transitional phase, which only required reporting, iron and steel accounted for 69% of overall tonnages reported across targeted sectors. Given the large tonnages handled by steel importers, the minimal threshold exemption is unlikely to benefit this sector.
“The European Commission is tightening the focus on the big emissions that CBAM is designed to tamp down on,” Rozenberg notes.
He adds that some sub processes and side processing of metals and goods that have minimal emissions associated with them are now out of scope.
This consists of finishing processes that are carried out by separate installations not covered by the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). The embedded emissions of those production processes, which are relatively low, should be excluded from the system boundaries of the calculation of emissions, the document says.
Meanwhile, penalties have also been increased for deliberate non-compliance, rising by 3-5 times.
“This is all about refining and focusing CBAM – making it stronger and clearer, while cutting out a lot of bureaucracy where that would have a low impact. CBAM will go ahead: on time, as planned, in January 2026,” Rozenberg adds.
Meanwhile, Dan Maleski, senior environmental markets advisor and CBAM lead at Redshaw advisors, tells Kallanish that while the changes may relieve some immediate pressure, the financial risk exposure stays the same. “Companies will still be on the hook for 2026 emissions but won’t need to fully account for them until 2027. This delay doesn’t remove the financial burden, it just shifts when it hits.”
“[This] grossly simplifies an overly-complex and burdensome regulation for importers of smaller quantities of goods: a positive development that made the EU CBAM appear overly-bureaucratic,” he adds. “The proposal maintains a proportionate approach to internalising the external cost of carbon pollution despite the threat of global border tariff escalations.”
Maleski also notes the uncertainty surrounding US President Donald Trump’s threats of reciprocal tariffs and how this will impact CBAM. The EU industry’s existing direct subsidy – EUA free allocation – will be reduced via free allocation reductions, so that a level playing field is baked into the mechanism.
Carrie Bone UK