Trade: Letter on the safeguard measures against imports of certain steel products

With respect to the review of the safeguard measures against imports of certain steel products, Orgalim expresses its continued concern regarding these measures, imposed provisionally since July 2018 and definitively since January 2019 .

While the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted Europe’s technologies industries in 2020, production levels are now increasing and are expected to continue to do so as the economy recovers during 2021.

Orgalim questions that the US tariffs on steel against third countries such as China cause a significant re-direction of steel trade from China and other third countries towards the EU. Moreover, the import quotas currently provided for in the safeguard measures are insufficient and some of them have already been exhausted. Furthermore, there is also the need to import certain steel products, which are not produced in sufficient quantity in Europe by the European steel industry. Also, the steel safeguard measures that have been in place for the past three years and three months have not had the effect of increasing the steel production capacity in the EU to the level needed by our industries (see annex I for steel data). 

As a result, following the review of the steel safeguard measures, we ask that the safeguard measures are abolished. 

To read the letter in full, please download the document above.