1 July 2022 – What happened to the new EU Safeguard quotas? This question will certainly be asked by market participants today. Surprisingly, and apparently without any official information, the quotas have been blocked as of 1 July 2022. The European Commission has so far remained silent on the matter.
The new EU Safeguard Quotas have been blocked
It is nothing new that the European Commission (EC) and the Directorate-General for Trade (DG-TRADE) make mistakes, especially with regard to market protection measures. We have reported on this multiple times and have ourselves uncovered several of these mistakes in recent years, which subsequently had to be corrected by the EU.
Communication breakdown at the EC?
Now there seems to have been a serious communication breakdown at the EC and DG-Trade with regard to the new Tariff Rate Quotas from 1 July 2022. You must have known by now that the new quotas were blocked until 8 July 2022 because the EC was allegedly too slow. Isn’t that so?
Customs authorities only partially informed
Only a few customs authorities in isolated EU member states, such as Poland, have been informed. These seem to have had the information since 28 June 2022.
On the official website of the Polish customs it says:
Changes in quotas for steel products
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/978 of 23 June 2022 amending Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/159 imposing definitive safeguard measures on imports of certain steel products (Official Journal L 167 of 24 June 2022 )
The regulation applies from 1 July 2022.
Due to the late publication of this regulation, all tariff quotas for certain steel products were blocked for the period from July 1-8, 2022. This means that the applications for these tariff quotas submitted on an ongoing basis will be distributed for the first time only after the blocking period has expired, i.e. on July 11, 2022.
Source: podatki.gov.pl, 28 June 2022
Overall, however, the information about the blocked Safeguard quotas does not seem to have reached the customs authorities. Telephone enquiries about this could not be answered by several authorities.
No official statement from the EU so far
There has been no information from the EC, neither via Tron nor via the Official Journal. DG-TRADE and DG-TAXUD have also not published any official information regarding the blocked safeguard quotas. Enquiries as to why the Safeguard quotas were blocked and why this was not officially communicated have so far been ignored or not answered at all by the EU. A press enquiry from us to the custom authorities was not answered.
Europe Direct: Simply contact the EU
If you would like to make your own enquiry, possibly to speed up the process towards an official announcement from the European Commission, you can submit a request here “Europe Direct” or by calling the following numbers
00 800 67 89 10 11 (from inside the EU)
+32 2 299 96 96 (from outside the EU)
We will of course keep you informed about further developments.
Latest news
- UK imposes sanctions on Russian Nickel King
- 35% tariffs on Russian steel and aluminum imports
- Nickel, copper – demand will far exceed supply
We at the Gerber Group have been trading in stainless steel worldwide for over 20 years. We are your experts when it comes to purchasing, import, logistics and services. Information is a vital part of this. Because only then can you and we make the right decisions. Do you have any questions? Contact us now.
Disclaimer: Many things here represent our opinion. Others are information from the Internet. We can therefore never claim to be correct or complete. And never base a business decision solely on the news you receive from us.
