French Minister Marc Ferracci said on Thursday that Europe’s steel sector needs to be better protected from cheap imports as current measures seem insufficient.
European steel producers are struggling with weak demand and a surge of low-cost imports from Asia, as China’s massive overcapacity floods global markets, prompting producers to shift excess supply to Europe.
“The European industry and the steel sector need protection, which in the short term means beefing up safeguard measures,” said Ferracci at a meeting with counterparts from seven EU countries on the steel industry in Paris.
Emphasizing that the European steel industry faced a ‘challenging situation’ due to heavily subsidized Chinese imports and impending U.S. tariffs, he stated: “If we do not take strong measures, plants will close down.”
As per the reports, the European Commission is investigating whether to tighten its current quota system on steel imports, aiming to protect EU producers from new tariffs that U.S. President Donald Trump plans to impose on steel and aluminium.
Ferracci stated that the EU safeguard measures, which were implemented in 2018 and set to expire in 2026 under WTO rules, are no longer aligned with the current global steel market dynamics, where excess production capacity is expected to reach three- and- a -half times demand by next year. Ministers opined that there will be revised quotas in line with the actual demand and further call for safeguards to be extended after a new investigation or for a new mechanism.