The European Commission has announced that it has decided to extend the safeguard measures on imports of 26 steel products for another two years until June 30, 2026, finding that the safeguard measure continues to be necessary to prevent serious injury. Without the extension, the current quota measures would expire on June 30, 2024.
In addition, some technical adjustments have been introduced on two product categories - hot rolled flat products and wire rod - to prevent the quotas allocated for “other countries” from being exhausted in the first days of the quota periods. Accordingly, for both products, each single country selling to the EU under the “other countries” category will be able to use only 15 percent of the total quota volume during the period. The total hot rolled flat product and wire rod quotas allocated to “other countries” for the quota period are at 945,664 mt and 122,746 mt, respectively. This means that each country exporting under this category will be able to export only 141,849 mt of HRC and 18,411 mt of wire rod to the EU in one period.
“Recent market developments resulted in a significant decrease of exports of traditional suppliers to the EU under the residual quotas in some categories, while exports from new countries of origin have increased substantially in a short period of time under the same residual quotas. This change of trade flows has created a series of negative effects to the functioning of the measure in some categories,” the statement said for the reason of the technical adjustments.
For the quota period between July 1 and September 30, HRC and wire rod quota volumes allocated for Turkey are at 475,173 mt and 119,010 mt, respectively.
At the beginning of the new EU quota period from April 1 to June 30, the 923,594 mt quota for HRC allocated for “other countries”, was exceeded with imported volumes waiting at EU ports, as SteelOrbis previously reported.
Meanwhile, the Commission will include Mozambique within the scope of the safeguard measure as from July 1, 2024 due to the expiry of the temporary exclusion of Mozambique from the application of safeguard measures defined in the EU-Southern African Development Community Economic Partnership Agreement.