Inox, produttori delusi dalla nuova Salvaguardia

Inox producers express disappointment with the new European Safeguard, two months after its measures took effect. These measures reduced the quotas destined for extra-European countries exporting steel to the EU by nearly 12 million tonnes. Despite this, steel bar producers have not seen improvements in activity and order collection. According to Massimiliano Burelli, CEO of Cogne Acciai Speciali, the plants remained at 70% of their productive capacity before the summer, as confirmed by major sector players.

Burelli had previously voiced the concerns of other Italian and European sectors against the European Commission and its decisions, which he believed penalized the long steel segment. The objective of the corrective measure was to reduce by 44% the flow of imports, but the review provided for a reduction of 56% in the UK and 41% in Switzerland.

India, the largest exporter of bars, saw only a moderate reduction of 27%. Once the available quota is exhausted, exporters can access residual quotas, leading to a total volume of available quotas for India to decrease by only 19.8% compared to the previous year.

The revised allocation mechanism, intended to limit the operations of state-supported operators operating with oversupply and non-European ESG alignment, does not seem to significantly reduce India's effective access to the EU market. A letter signed by all major sector operators and sent to the Commission last July has not yet received a response.

Burelli explains that the measure is expected to be transitory, with a possible reevaluation in six months. Interactions are ongoing with category associations such as Eurofer and Federacciai.