After years of progressive tightening of the European Union’s regulatory framework to protect the steel market, the first critical issues of the EU systems limiting steel imports are beginning to clearly emerge. In an official note, Assofermet – the association representing the Italian metallurgical and steel sector – expressed strong concern over the lack of protection for downstream sectors of the supply chain, calling for a radical and timely change of approach by European institutions.
According to the association, the public debate has remained focused almost exclusively on the needs of upstream steel producers for too long, ignoring the side-effects that duties, quotas and increasing bureaucratic compliance generate for processors, distribution and end-users, starting with the metalworking sector.
As previously reported by SteelOrbis, on July 1, 2026, with the expiration of the current steel safeguard regime, new and significantly more restrictive provisions for imports into the European Union will come into force. The measures approved by the European Parliament and the Council - currently awaiting publication in the Official Journal of the EU - will introduce an annual duty-free quota of approximately 18.3 million mt of steel products. Volumes exceeding this quota will be subject to a 50 percent duty. Added to this revision are the obligation to trace the country of origin of steel melting and pouring, and the economic effects of the CBAM, which entered into full force on January 1, 2026.
The risk of unbalanced protection
Assofermet said it recognizes the need to protect the European steel industry as “understandable and legitimate” in an international context altered by marked global production overcapacity and distortions generated by the Chinese production system, but it noted that the real core issue lies in the imbalance of the measures adopted.
Protecting only upstream producers without supporting the companies that process and purchase that steel is penalizing processors and distribution with:
- a sharp increase in raw material costs;
- a progressive reduction of sourcing options in international markets;
- a massive bureaucratic and administrative burden that is increasingly difficult to sustain.
The association stressed that processing and distribution represent the primary industrial value added of the European system, as well as the link most exposed to global competition: “If the EU loses shares in the global manufacturing market and if the continent’s competitiveness is further squeezed by the accumulation of massive regulatory constraints, in the medium to long term upstream steel producers themselves will inevitably suffer as well, as they will see orders from their customers inexorably decrease, leading to yet another drop in steel consumption and demand. An unbalanced protection, therefore, risks failing to protect even those for whom it is formally designed and intended,” the note reads.
Call on EU legislators to adopt support tools for downstream supply chain
To prevent the competitiveness of European manufacturing from being sacrificed, Assofermet is calling on EU legislators to immediately accompany trade defense mechanisms with support tools for the downstream supply chain. The priorities indicated concern “important and substantial simplifications in documentary obligations, guarantees of adequate supply options and, above all, a serious and far-sighted impact assessment on the cumulative effects of quotas, duties and CBAM along the entire industrial supply chain.”
