The European Commission today published the implementing regulation establishing tariff-free quotas for 18.3mn t/yr and introducing a 50pc out-of-quota duty for 26 categories of steel.
The tariff system replaces the current EU steel safeguards that expire at the end of June. The regulation reserves 50pc, or 9.15mn t, of the 18.3mn t annual EU import quota for countries with a free trade agreement (FTA).
The remaining 50pc is available for all countries, with or without an FTA. The commission said EU FTA partners retain a "significantly higher" share of the EU market than the average reduction in imports of 47pc.
A senior official said the regulation does not "really" set a global quota on caps, but uses country-specific allocations. Countries above a 5pc share in a given category receive a country allocation, but others competing under so-called competitive residual quotas are not under a cap system.
"But we did, within the negotiations, find some categories where we would grant certain partners additional secure quotas," the official said.
The commission noted a larger share of country-specific allocations among the 9.15mn t reserved for FTA partners, granted to countries that historically held at least a 5pc share of import volumes based on 2022-24 figures.
