4 December 2024 – The EU Commission wants to look for a successor to the EU Safeguard measure on certain steel products, which expires in July 2026, and thus continue to put the steel processing industry in Europe at a considerable competitive disadvantage. Base metals on the SHFE are showing a favourable trend today, with nickel prices in particular rising significantly.
SHFE base metals show a favourable trend
The base metals on the Asian commodity exchange SHFE were favourable on Wednesday. Copper, aluminium, tin and zinc rose by up to 1%. Only the price of lead moved sideways.
The price of nickel, an important stainless steel and battery raw material, fell by almost 2.6%. The nickel price on the European LME was also firm and friendly in early trading, gaining more than 0.8% to around 16,145 $/MT.
EU Commission wants to find successor to Steel Safeguard
The EU Commission wants to look for a successor to the EU Safeguard measure on certain steel imports, which expires in mid-2026, in favour of domestic steel manufacturers. According to media reports, Executive Vice-President Stephane Sejourne, the French Commissioner responsible for the European Union’s industrial policy, said this on Tuesday.
The threat of non-WTO-compliant double penalties at the EU’s external borders
The fact that this successor regulation already exists with the EU Carbon Border Tax and market protection measure CBAM and that an additional general protection measure would lead to double penalties and thus violate the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is, of course, being ignored as usual.
EU steel market already overprotected
There are already around 180 market protection measures against imports of steel products into the EU. Together with Safeguard and CBAM, these have led to a massive competitive disadvantage in the steel processing industry in the EU member states. Small and medium-sized companies in particular are suffering from the favouritism and high-handedness of the European Commission and have been deliberately disadvantaged for many years to the benefit of a few large multinational corporations.
Steel manufacturers in Europe repeatedly claim that overcapacity from China and subsidies there are flooding the European market with cheap imports. This ignores the fact that EU import quotas for steel have remained constant and stable at around 25% since 2015 and even fell significantly below this level in 2023.
Massive competitive disadvantages loom for the steel processing industry
Any further unilateral protective measures will only lead to ever more dramatic competitive disadvantages for steel processing companies in Europe and their more than 11.5 million (11,500,000) employees. A crisis that is solely the responsibility of the Commission and the EU steel producers.
EU steel oligopoly demands binding green steel quotas for car manufacturers
In addition, the EU steel manufacturers are now also demanding that in future the European Union should force car manufacturers in Europe, who are already in a serious crisis, to use a binding proportion of green steel in their vehicles.
Once again, this is clear proof that the European steel oligopoly is striving for a dictatorship over the steel consuming industry. The steel manufacturers’ demands have nothing to do with democracy and a free and social market economy. The European Commission must clearly reject these demands for a binding green steel quota and must make an example of those demanding it.
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