EU plans to reduce steel imports by 15%
The European Commission presented on Wednesday an action plan for the steel and metals industries. In a sector marked by strong international competition, the European executive plans to tighten import quotas with an objective of 15% reduction.
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/03/19/the-eu-plans-to-reduce-steel-imports-by-15
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The European Commission presented on Wednesday an action plan for the steel and metals industries. In a sector marked by strong international competition, the European executive plans to tighten import quotas with an objective of 15% reduction.
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/03/19/the-eu-plans-to-reduce-steel-imports-by-15
Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages
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00:00The European Commission has unveiled its action plan on steels and metals, which aims to boost
00:11the competitiveness of a sector under pressure.
00:15The industry is currently confronted with the Chinese overcapacity, which is pushing
00:19prices down, as well as US tariffs on 25% on steel and aluminium.
00:26The Commission will open an investigation to assess the impact of US custom duties on
00:30the aluminium market.
00:31What will also happen is that more of the steel flows will come into Europe, and so
00:39if we do not respond, so Chinese or other steel will start, and is already there, but
00:45start even more flooding the European market, and that will not enable the transition of
00:50the European companies, which have to invest billions, billions of euros in investments
00:55to go for decarbonisation.
00:58Euronews looked into the state of the industry at Tata Steel in the Netherlands.
01:03The sector is also facing high energy prices that undermine its competitiveness.
01:09The EU action plan aims to ensure that the industry has access to clean and affordable
01:13energy.
01:14Currently there is quite some CO2 emissions in steel, but with the new technology it will
01:19really decrease, and we will move in 2045 to zero, with the new process that certainly
01:24if we introduce hydrogen and other renewables, we will be close to zero in that phase, so
01:29then it is clean from the CO2, and what we have done in our plan here is to look directly
01:35at all our emissions.
01:38The EU executive also wants to reform the carbon border adjustment mechanism, to avoid
01:43companies that comply with European environmental standards from being penalised in the international
01:47market.
01:49As Europeans, we had two possible choices, either to accept that Europe is no longer
01:55competitive on steel, and to progressively lose its production capacities, and the consequence
02:03is to become progressively dependent on this sector, or to preserve an industry that we
02:11need for construction, automobiles or defence.
02:16The choice was clear, Europe must save its steel.
02:21With the steel industry supporting over 2.6 million jobs, the stakes are high.