EU mills are sustaining steel prices through trade barriers rather than stronger demand, Italian steel association Assofermet said on Friday.
Weak demand from European manufacturing end users continued in April as geopolitical tensions, US tariffs and uncertainty around the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism weighed on sentiment. Buyers continued to limit purchases to what they needed to cover existing orders, with no appetite for restocking, the association said.
Assofermet also flagged concern ahead of the revised EU safeguard measures due to enter force on 1 July, which will reduce available import quotas by 47pc and double duties on volumes exceeding quarterly quotas. The association said increasingly constrained imports are making it harder to source certain steel grades within the EU market.
The group also backed stricter "Made in EU" procurement rules, similar to European steel association Eurofer, which warned about defining European steel based on where material is melted and poured to prevent imported substrate processed in the EU from qualifying as European-origin steel.
Italian steel distributors reported lower sales volumes and prices in April compared with the same month last year, with long steel and flat steel products both under pressure. The automotive and heavy engineering sectors continued to be affected by US tariff policies and uncertainty surrounding potential measures on European cars.
Assofermet expects the market to remain cautious at least until the implementation of the revised EU safeguard measures and the 1 August deadline for EU-US trade negotiations.
