The European Commission (EC) imposed definitive safeguard measures on 28 imported steel products in February, replacing the provisional measures that had been in place since July 2018.
The EC opened the safeguard case in an attempt to prevent steel shipments being redirected to the EU after the United States imposed import tariffs as part of its Section 232 investigation. Almost one year after the preliminary measures were set, European steelmakers claimed the decision was not tough enough to curb the negative impact on prices from imports. European mills requested tougher measures, asking the EC to implement a quarterly volume allocation for all country-specific import quotas and remove the 5% year-on-year quotas rise. The EC first initiated a review of its steel import safeguard measures on May 17 of this year. Hot-rolled coil The impact of the safeguarding measures on the European HRC market has been minimal so far, market sources said. In the specific case of HRC, almost 60% of imports are covered by anti-dumping measures, so the EC applied a global quota to this product, with...