The European Commission (EC) needs to wait before making a decision in the safeguard case until trade flow changes become clear because, currently, there is no threat to the EU steel market from imports, Tommaso Sandrini, president of Italian steel distributors' association Assofermet told Metal Bulletin.
The EC opened an investigation in late March, in an attempt to prevent steel shipments being redirected to the EU market as a result of the United States' Section 232 import tariffs. The European authorities are expected to impose preliminary safeguarding measures on steel imports in early July."We totally disagree with claims that imports are a big threat for the European market and that all the steel mills are now in danger due to the usual volumes of import," Sandrini said.European steel market is "far from being unbalanced" now, Sandrini said. Sandrini criticized the European steel association, representing EU's steelmakers, Eurofer's approach to the safeguard case, claiming that it only takes import volumes into account without taking acknowledging export volumes from the EU, domestic production and changes in demand."If you go deeper into the numbers you will see that over the past few years the consumption within Europe increased a...