Assofermet criticizes revision of EU safeguard measures on steel imports

The Italian association Assofermet, which represents Italian distributors of scrap, raw materials and steel products, has protested against further tightening of EU safeguards on steel imports. They also call on the European Commission to refrain from extending them beyond 2025. This is stated in a statement by the association.

According to Assofermet, the risk of extending or even strengthening import safeguards does not solve the existing structural problems in the European steel market.

The association believes that the persistent lack of demand from steel-using end-user sectors cannot be addressed by further import restrictions. On the contrary, it is necessary to stimulate the growth of demand and consumption of steel through broad-based economic policies, instead of acting only with regulatory measures of trade protection again.

Assofermet notes that the extension of protective measures will create new uncertainty in the sector. The association calls for the current measures to be extended beyond December 31, 2025, which will allow them to be archived and avoid duplication with the CBAM, which will essentially lead to further cost increases for the EU manufacturing industry.

At the same time, in case of extension and change of protective measures, the association proposes a more flexible system of tariff quotas. This includes:

• maintaining the level of import liberalization,
• abolishing country-specific quotas and introducing global quotas based on product categories,
• creating a more flexible management mechanism to reallocate unused quotas at the end of each quarter.

Assofermet demanded that the regulatory system underlying the safeguard measures should not be changed any further, but brought to its logical conclusion in accordance with current EU legislation and WTO rules, which do not allow for further extensions.

The EBA called on the EC to focus on structural solutions of a different kind that will help to increase demand and competitiveness of the European industry, instead of resorting to the predictable protectionist policy again.

As GMK Center reported earlier, the European Steel Association (EUROFER) has addressed the EC with a proposal to cut import quotas on flat products by 50%. This will help create a better balance between domestic production and imports. The request was filed on January 10 as part of the functional review of safeguard measures, but its content became public only on January 22, causing importers to be dissatisfied. In addition, the EBA submitted a number of other proposals.