At a time when the European Commission has announced a trade agreement including steel with the United States (see EUROPE 13688/1), eleven European Union Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) called on Monday 28 July for new European measures to protect the European steel industry from global production overcapacity (+600 Mt/year in 2024) and the current destabilisation of the multilateral trade framework.
The signatory countries are advocating limiting imports of flat steel and stainless steel products to 15% of EU consumption levels, and imports of long products to 5% of EU consumption levels . To achieve this, a system of duty-free tariff quotas would be put in place, with flexible volumes to adapt to changes in European demand. It would apply to all third countries and would be compatible with WTO rules.
“On the basis of European demand for steel in 2024, such quotas would be 40–50% lower than the quotas provided for under the safeguard measures in force”, write the eleven countries in a letter to the European Commission. In their view, “the amount of customs duties applied to surplus imports could be increased, if necessary”. And they invited the EU institution to “study the effect of additional customs duties of 50%”.
Furthermore, the signatory countries believe that the future framework should cover steel products that are not covered by the current safeguard measures, including certain tubes and pipes, grain-oriented magnetic steel sheets, cast iron, iron or steel shot, grinding balls and similar items for milling, and bearing tubes.
According to the eleven Member States, the future framework should make it possible to reduce imports to levels equivalent to those of the 2012-2013 period, when the European steel industry was operating at 80–85% of its production capacity, with current production capacity ratios of around 60% considered to be “unsustainable”.
See the action plan for the eleven countries (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/i11 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)