EU adopts definitive measures on steel imports

EU adopts definitive measures on steel imports

The EU Commission declared its determinations of definitive safeguard measures under which seven products are subject to quotas and duties. Proceedings for eleven products are terminated and investigations are still ongoing for the remaining three that are namely quarto plate, rebar and tinplate products. The Commission made its determinations by excluding all the products where there was no evidence of an import surge or a substantial negative impact on the Community producers. A rapid import surveillance is set up to be able to fastly identify any necessity for taking safeguard action. According to the Commission's declaration, the necessity of these measures derive from the increasing level of imports into EU after the implementation of US safeguard measures. As the US exemptions do not cover the products listed under EU definitive safeguard measures, this threat to the Community producers remain valid. The tariff quotas will gradually expire until March 28, 2005 unless US safeguard measures are sooner abolished. For six of the products individual quotas are allocated to the countries that have a substantial interest in exporting to the EU yet there is certain amount allowed for third countries. For hot rolled coils, a single global quota is allocated instead. It is remarkable that the hot rolled coil imports allowed for 2002/2003 is lower than that of allowed under the provisional measures. It is presumed that the reason for this difference is the fact that it now excludes imports from most developing countries. Only countries such as Argentina, China, Egypt, Iran, Libya and South Africa, most probably those that are above the 3% limit, are included in the quota. On cold rolled coil, quota is allocated for Turkey is considerably high, on HR sheet and plate, HR narrow strip and CR coil Slovakia is granted the highest quota. However, in all cases the largest quota is allocated to the non listed countries where the system will work on a “first come first served” basis, on customs declarations requiring exporters to prove they have material ready to export under the quota system. The European Commission will cooperate with the customs authorities of Member States in order to follow up the importing information closely.