According to Gianluca Gennari, administrator at Italy-based consulting company ICT International and Trading Company, every European business leader should ask whether Europe genuinely intends to protect its industrial base or is instead accelerating its own decline. He argued that, over recent years, the European Commission has introduced an increasingly complex framework of environmental regulations, trade restrictions and compliance mechanisms, claiming they are intended to strengthen sustainability and protect the European steel industry.
However, he contended that the outcome has been the opposite. Following the introduction of the Green Deal, Green Steel, taxes on raw materials, safeguard measures, import quotas and, finally, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), policies were implemented without a sufficient understanding of how the steel market operates or of the needs of Europe’s extensive manufacturing supply chain.
CBAM confusion: a carbon tax without clear rules
Gennari stated that CBAM represents the latest example of what he describes as Brussels’ fragmented industrial policy. He noted that the EU acknowledged in 2025 that the final benchmark values required to calculate CBAM costs would not be available before the beginning of 2026, forcing companies to make purchasing decisions without knowing the future cost of their imports. Although benchmark values have since been published, he argued that they remain too high to be practical for commercial decision-making, leaving steel consumers dependent on emissions data declared by steel producers.
He pointed out that these emissions must ultimately be verified by EU-accredited certification bodies, yet those bodies have still not been designated and may not be appointed until mid-2027. According to Gennari, this means companies will have been purchasing steel for around 18 months without knowing its actual regulatory cost. He added that fluctuating carbon certificate prices, an uncertain calculation methodology, an incomplete certification framework and the requirement for importers to make financial provisions for obligations that cannot yet be accurately calculated create conditions under which businesses cannot operate efficiently.
Import quotas: an industry frozen by regulatory uncertainty
He also argued that the situation has been aggravated by the new safeguard import quotas. According to Gennari, European companies waited for months to learn what import volumes would be available, how quotas would be allocated, when the new system would take effect, whether Russian and Belarusian quotas would be redistributed and whether country-specific quotas would be introduced. These questions were answered only on June 30, 2026, one day before the new rules entered into force.
He stated that, in an industry characterized by long production cycles and purchasing decisions made months in advance, such regulatory uncertainty inevitably leads to commercial paralysis. During the second quarter of 2026, many companies in Italy’s steel supply chain reportedly experienced business volumes declining by as much as 50 percent year on year, while purchases were postponed, production slowed, investment decisions were delayed and inventories continued to be depleted without replenishment. Gennari highlighted that this paralysis resulted not from market fundamentals but from regulatory uncertainty created by European institutions.
Brussels still fails to understand what Europe really is
According to Gennari, the underlying mistake is cultural before it is economic. He emphasized that Europe is neither a mining nor an energy superpower and cannot rely on abundant domestic raw materials in the way that the US, China, India or Russia can. Instead, he described Europe as a world-class manufacturing platform whose prosperity depends on thousands of companies that process, transform and add value to steel products, generating employment, innovation and competitiveness. However, he said that Brussels continues to regard imported coils and semi-finished steel products as a threat while overlooking the fact that such imports enable European manufacturers to remain competitive internationally.
The numbers nobody wants to acknowledge
Gennari noted that Europe’s primary steel industry employs around 300,000 people, while downstream steel processing and manufacturing industries employ nearly three million. He stated that these figures demonstrate where Europe’s strategic interests lie and warned that protecting only primary steel production while penalizing companies that consume steel risks weakening millions of jobs, thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises and one of the most important pillars of European manufacturing.
The real threat is not semi-finished steel
He further argued that imported coils and semi-finished steel products are not the real threat because they supply European factories. Instead, he said that steel-intensive finished products imported from outside the EU continue to enter the European market with relatively few restrictions, replacing European manufacturers and putting downward pressure on prices. According to Gennari, this is where unfair competition exists and where policy measures should be focused.
The solutions already exist
According to Gennari, Europe’s steel value chain is not seeking protectionism or special treatment but rather clear, predictable and consistent rules. He stated that the industry requires realistic import quotas based on actual market demand, finalized and timely CBAM rules, stronger controls and appropriate restrictions on steel-intensive finished products imported from third countries, and continuous dialogue between policymakers and industry representatives.
The risk of industrial suicide
Gennari concluded by arguing that Europe continues to portray itself as a global leader in climate policy while steadily losing competitiveness, investment and industrial capacity. He stated that industry requires planning, planning requires certainty, and uncertainty creates fear, paralysis and decline. In his view, the crisis facing the European steel sector has become a genuine industrial emergency, and the key question is no longer whether European industry can adapt to new regulations, but whether there will still be an industry left to protect once Europe finally determines what those regulations will be.