The Consortium for Imports of Hot-Rolled Flats, in which several European distributors are active parties, announced yesterday that it is going to ask for a meeting with the European Commission (EC) to discuss possible solutions to avoid negative effects of the recent measures against hot rolled flat products imports from Brazil, Iran, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine.
In response to this action, Antonio Gozzi, Italian steel producers association (Federacciai) president, declared to media agencies that antidumping measures are set on real violation of international trade rules after several investigations and asking to follow the rules does not mean asking mere protectionism.
In the meantime the European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker, underlined the importance of taking care about the European steel industry "We already have 37 antidumping and anti-subsidy measures in place to protect our steel industry from unfair competition, but we need to do more," Juncker said on Wednesday, September 14. "We should not be naive free-traders, but be able to respond as forcefully to dumping as the US," he added.