The European Commission has unveiled sweeping reforms aimed at protecting the European steel industry from global overcapacity, paving the way for one of the most significant changes in EU trade policy in the last ten years.
Her proposed replacement of the existing protective measures in the EU for steel imports will lead to a revision of duty-free quotas, a revision of the distribution by country and stricter trade controls. However, since no technical details have been released yet, most of the impact on the market remains open to interpretation.
In this analytical article, MEPs explore how the new system can redistribute quotas among key exporters, identifying potential winners and losers based on available data and the allocation logic used in previous protective measures.
The plan to restore the EU's protective measures
The European Commission unveiled its long-awaited proposal to replace the existing EU regime of protective measures for steel imports on October 7.
According to this proposal, the European Commission's duty-free steel import quota will be reduced by about 47%, from about 33 million tons to 18 million tons. The tariff rate on imports exceeding this quota will double from 25% to 50%.
The proposal would also put an end to the practice of shifting unused quotas to the next quarter, require importers to indicate the origin of steel in declarations of smelting and casting, and provide the Commission with the authority to extend the measures to new products during future inspections.
If approved, the measures are expected to enter into force on July 1, 2026 and remain in effect until 2031, with a review scheduled for mid-2027.
As the Commission has not yet published its detailed implementation rules or country allocation, key questions remain unanswered. These include exporting countries that will receive quotas for specific countries that will be subject to the remaining quotas, as well as developing countries that may be exempt from WTO rules.
Confirmed information on the distribution of EU steel import quotas
The European Commission has confirmed that its proposal introduces a two-tier approach to imposing restrictions on steel imports into the EU. This is done in order to compare long-term data with current import trends.
The total amount of EU tariff quotas (TRQ) for each category of steel products will be based on the volume of imports into the bloc in 2013. The Commission chose this year as a benchmark because it preceded the global crisis of excess steel production.
