EU to impose provisional safeguards to protect electrical steel from imports
The European
Union will impose a set of import quotas and minimum prices for
electrical steel and downstream products, it said on Friday, in
a bid to shield the EU from cheap imports, principally from
Asia.
The move will benefit Thyssenkrupp's steel unit
TKMS and Poland's Stalprodukt SA, among the last
European producers of electrical steel, which is used in wind
turbines and power grids.
To keep production in Europe going, the EU will establish
'safeguards' in the form of quotas for grain-oriented electrical
steel (GOES), as well as laminations and transformer cores
containing the metal. For the steel itself, the minimum price
will be set between €2,800 and €3,400 per metric ton within the
quotas and at €3,500 per ton for volumes above them.
The European Commission launched an investigation into
safeguards for GOES in March. The measures to apply from
September 25 are provisional, while the investigation continues.
Definitive measures, at the end of the investigation, would
require a qualified majority of EU members to be imposed.
Electrical steel was not covered by broader measures imposed
earlier this year to protect Europe's struggling steel sector,
which has come under intense pressure from low-cost competition,
including from China.
Thyssenkrupp last year announced temporary production stops
at its electrical steel sites in Germany and France as a result
of rivals selling excess capacity on the European markets at
what sources have said are 25% discounts.
Brussels' move comes as the continent's industry is
increasingly calling for better protection against China,
the EU's second-largest trading partner after the United States,
with automotive, chemicals and steel firms all facing pressure.
Imports of electrical steel from China, Japan, Russia, South
Korea and the United States have been subject to anti-dumping
measures, also in the form of minimum import prices, since 2015.
The new minimum prices, while not strictly comparable, are
significantly higher than those already in place. They will also
apply to downstream products.
China represented more than 50 per cent of EU imports of the steel
and its downstream products in 2025.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop and Christoph Steitz;
Editing by Kevin Liffey and Louise Heavens)