EU’s proposed new steel import safeguards not tough enough, mills say
The decision to adjust the measures followed a review that began in December 2024. The proposed adjustments to the measures will come into effect on April 1, 2025.
The changes have not been published on the official WTO website yet, but the text has already been distributed among European steel market participants.
The existing measures have been in place since 2018, intended to protect EU steelmakers from a potential surge in imports. The current measures were set to run until June 30, 2026.
The new safeguard adjustments indicate that the annual liberalization rate (the annual increase in the TRQ) will change from 1% to just a 0.1% increase.
“Data shows that the liberalization rate in the past has largely outpaced the evolution of consumption. While TRQs have been increased by almost 25% since the measure was imposed [in 2018], consumption has decreased by 14% over the same period,” a European Commission note to the WTO read.
“These opposing trends have therefore significantly widened the gap between the level of TRQs and the market demand, and created an opportunity for imports to significantly increase their market share,” it added. “The latest market outlooks on world steel consumption only foresee a modest recovery in 2025 [to levels last seen in 2023], which the Union market is expected to follow.”
The Commission also suggested the introduction of a refined regime for access to the residual quota for countries benefiting from country-specific quotas.
Larger exporters that have exhausted their country-specific quota could access the residual quota volumes in the final quarter of the year. The objective of this mechanism would be to avoid volumes in the residual quota being unused.
Under the current functioning review, the Commission was set to cancel such access for several categories, including hot-rolled coil (category 1), cold-rolled coil (category 2), hot-dipped galvanized coil (category 4A), heavy plate (category 7), rebar (category 13) and wire rod (category 16).
The Commission also introduced a new 1B quota for HRC for imports falling under HS code 7212 60 00, “following crowding-out of a highly specific product in category 1 (HRC) as a consequence of introducing the 15% cap in the second functioning review,” the notice read.
Key adjustments proposed
New caps per country
New caps per country over the TRQ volume initially available in each quarter will be introduced not only for HRC and wire rod (categories 1A and 16), as suggested in the review in summer 2024, but also for HDG (categories 4A and 4B), heavy plate (category 7), rebar (category 14) and others (see table).
Notably, for HRC, the cap has been reduced from 15%, initially proposed in July 2024, to 13%.
The total allowance for the “other countries” safeguards category for HRC (category 1A) was suggested at 856,769 tonnes for April-June 2025. This means that any supplier in this category will be able to supply no more than 111,379 tonnes (13% of the total allocation) to the EU during the specified period.
The adjustment would further affect HRC imports falling under the “other countries” category. Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan and Egypt are the major HRC suppliers to the EU under that heading, with Asian suppliers offering the most competitive prices, according to market participants in Europe.
In contrast, in April-June 2024, Vietnam alone supplied to the bloc 231,491 tonnes of HRC.
HRC buyer sources,lambasted the suggested caps, pointing out that they would make importing steel “more like gambling.”
“A cap introduced for nearly all products – plate, CRC, rebar, you name it. Looks like they want to stop us from importing steel altogether,” a trading source said.
Reversing redistribution of sanctioned steel volumes from Russia and Belarus will result in lower HRC quotas
Following the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, the EU banned the import of all finished steel products originating in Russia and its supporter, Belarus
Those volumes have been redistributed in each product category where Russia and Belarus had country-specific quotas, thus increasing the allocation volumes available to other countries.
But given the current context of the general deceleration in the EU steel market and its deteriorating outlook, “the Commission considers it no longer in the Union’s interest to have these volumes available,” the document said.
The sanctioned tonnages will therefore be removed from the HRC, wire rod, heavy plate and hollow sections quotas.
Specifically, for category 1A (HRC), the Commission suggested a reversal of the redistribution, by as much as 65% of the volumes.
This would result in lower quarterly allocations, as the table below shows.
Against all expectations, no significant quota cuts have been introduced.
“It’s disappointing. No big quotas cut, even though it was expected, and [regional steel association] Eurofer demanded a 50% reduction of quotas. Again, the Commission is too much in the hands of [steel] importers,” a mill source in Europe said.
“HRC quotas are cut by no more than 11% in total, against expectations of 15-50%. It’s a joke. No more than 1 million tonnes of [HRC] imports will be gone [from the EU market] as a result [of new safeguards],” a mill source said.
