The European Commission (EC) has made a number of changes to its existing regime of safeguard measures concerning 26 steel product categories, it said on September 26.
The changes will come into force on October 1 this year.The definitive safeguard mechanism already in place increases the level of tariff-free quotas for each product category by 5% annually. The first such liberalization took place on July 1, 2019, which was the end of the first quota period. Starting from October 1 this year, the quota will be increased by only 3% each year.The definitive safeguard measures applied to a list of imported steel products, in the form of 25% tariff rates and a range of quotas that are partly annual and country-specific and partly quarterly and global. These took effect in February this year and were set to remain in place for a period of three years.The EC initiated a review of these measures on May 17 this year, however.Category 1 - hot-rolled flat steelThe EC decided to set a limit of 30% of the overall total for...