Axel Eggert, director general of the European Steel Association (EUROFER), has stated that EUROFER welcomes the provisional steel safeguard regulation of the European Commission (EC), which will defend the EU’s internal market from surges of steel imports in the wake of the US Section 232 measures.
Mr. Eggert commented that the measure will ensure that steel producers in the EU do not suffer extreme surges of imports of steel deflected away from the now-constricted US market. Moreover, users of steel will still be able to access traditional steel trade flows without any tariff and at the highest EU import level ever, he added.
According to EUROFER’s statement, the provisional measures have left out a small number of product categories, which also allows for certain countries’ products to be excluded if their share of imports of a given category is less than three percent of total imports, and the country itself is classed by the European Commission as being a ‘developing country’. This means that economies such as China and Turkey provisionally escape safeguards on some products. EEA countries have been excluded from the measures because of their close economic links to the EU. Finally, the quota portion of the safeguard is on a first-come-first-served basis, meaning there will be a race to fill the quota by exporters: a shipping clause present in the regulation even means that deliveries already en route will not be affected by the measures.
Mr. Eggert concluded by saying that EUROFER firmly welcomes the commission’s decisive efforts in its investigation and hopes that any shortcomings in the new safeguard can be ironed out in time for the final measure in 200 days’ time.