EU safeguard discussions going on with the Commission

EU safeguard discussions going on with the Commission

The provisional safeguard measures against steel imports imposed by the EU last March is going to expire on September 28th. The discussions are still going on within the EU Commission as proposals. The 7 categories proposed on 26 August to go definitive have not been changed and the balance 14 categories from the original 21 on the provisional list would expire on 28 September 2002. Quantity for each category to be calculated as 110% of the three years (1999, 2000 and 2001) average. The definitive HRC quotas proposed are still global, not country specific. Some countries, including Egypt, have lobbied for the EU to go down the global route on HRC as they have the new capacity coming on stream and were fearful that country specific would work against them as they have been absent for the past 12 months from the EU market. Also, as they have one of the shortest lead times and one of the shortest shipments (on top of a new mill with 1 million tpy capacity) they need to have all avenues open to sell the capacity. The other 6 groups still stay country specific, with the tonnages proposed in the August 26th meeting remaining unchanged . On the other hand 3 extra categories have been proposed: Tinplate, quarto plate and rebars. Rautaruuki, through its Norway plant Fundia, exports a lot to the EU under an old EFTA agreement. However the EU is not very happy about this agreement and therefore there is the possibilty that it might be dropped. The addition of quarto plate is driven mainly by Italy as there are 5 independent slab to plate rerollers in this country. With the 30 day notice being required by WTO for new proposals (and the provisionals expiring 28/09/02), it is likely that existing provisional safeguards for the 7 categories will be converted into the definitive measures and that there would be no new proposals. For the other 14 product categories on the original provisional safeguard list and not proposed to go definitive, there is a growing support in the EU Commission for "accelerated surveillance". EU would probaly push customs to report weekly all figures of physical imports so that any increase could trigger immediate measures. There are no further meetings planned for the 15 member states to openly discuss these matters and the general feeling is that the proposals will now go to the "College of Commissioners" for their approval.