Published by: Darina Kahramanova<>
25 Mar 2025 @ 18:23 UTC

New steel safeguard measures will come into effect in Europe on April 1, 2025, and will remain in force until June 30, 2026, according to the final version of the regulation on safeguard measures on imports that was published in the Official Journal of the EU on Tuesday March 25.Reactions among industry sources were mixed, Fastmarkets heard. Some were satisfied with the measures, while others were disappointed that stronger quota cuts were not introduced.
But market participants expected that the new measures would support domestic steel prices.
The amendments to the current measures resulted from a consecutive steel safeguard review, initiated by the European Commission in December 2024.
The existing measures, in place since 2018, were intended to protect EU steelmakers from a potential surge in imports.
The EU has notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) about the planned adjustments, which focus on decreasing the annual liberalization rate, introducing caps, and changing the tariff rate quota (TRQ) access for certain steel products.
The new regulation was published in the EU’s Official Journal without significant changes from the document submitted to the WTO, Fastmarkets understands.
As initially announced, the annual liberalization rate (the annual increase in the TRQ) will change to just a 0.1% increase from 1%. According to the Commission, this was necessary when considering the recent negative trend and outlook for steel consumption in the world and the Union steel market.
Four other targeted adjustments have been implemented by the new regulation, the official document read.
Refining the current mechanism for access to residual quotas This mechanism allows a larger exporter which has exhausted its country-specific quota to access the residual quota volumes in the final April-June quarter of the safeguard year. This is usually the quarter when unused volumes are at their highest, according to the regulation.
Now, however, the Commission has decided to cancel such access for several categories, including hot-rolled coil (category 1), cold-rolled coil (category 2), hot-dipped galvanized coil (category 4A), rebar (category 13) and wire rod (category 16).
The reason for this was that import pressure and decreasing consumption were identified in these categories.
In the notification to the WTO, steel plate was also on this list, but according to the final version of the regulation, this system would not apply to plate.
The Commission also introduced a new 1B quota for HRC, for imports falling under HS code 7212 60 00, to guarantee that some niche products would be able to benefit from the duty-free quota.
Sanctioned steel volumes Until now, the quotas for sanctioned steel volumes from Russia and Belarus were redistributed to other exporting countries, subject to safeguard measures.
The Commission has decided now to stop this practice for certain categories. For example, the redistribution will be reversed for category 24 (other seamless tubes).
This rule will be partially applied for hot-rolled coil (category 1A), plate (category 7), wire rod (category 16) and hollow sections (category 21). For these categories, 35% of the sanctioned volumes would continue to be redistributed.
These categories show decreasing consumption in 2024, while imports gain market share, the Commission said. However, reversing the redistribution of the full volumes subject to sanctions would risk a shortage of supply for user industries.
According to a distributor source based in Germany, this would have a significant effect on imported HRC, decreasing annual imported volumes by about 10%.
New caps for the residual TRQ The caps in the latest version of the regulation complied with the initial intentions reported to the WTO.

Repealing the carry-over of unused quarterly TRQs The fourth main adjustment was repealing the carry-over of unused quarterly TRQs in the next period for categories under significant import pressure.
This would refer to hot-rolled coil (category 1A), cold-rolled coil (category 2), metallic coated sheets (category 4A), organic coated sheets (category 5), tin mill products (category 6), plate (category 7), stainless bars and light sections (category 14), wire rod (category 16), angles, shapes and sections (category 17), sheet piling (category 18), gas pipes (category 20), hollow sections (category 21), seamless stainless tubes and pipes (category 22), other seamless tubes (category 24) and large welded tubes (category 25B).