AluRVS: Wake up, Europe: tax the steel in imported end products too!

EC plan halves steel quotas and doubles levies — without mirror measures, there is a risk of a wave of imports of cheap end products and accelerated European deindustrialisation shares AluRVS in its October newsletter. The European Association of Independent Metal Distributors (EURANIMI) warns that the European Commission’s new steel plan will destroy tens of thousands of manufacturing companies across Europe.

The EC’s proposal: import quotas -50% (stainless steel: -60%) and out-of-quota levies increased from 25% to 50%. This, in combination with CBAM, the new EU CO2 tax on imported steel that will come into effect on 1 January 2026, will easily increase steel prices by another 10%. The result: skyrocketing prices and structural shortages for the European manufacturing industry.

What is going wrong?
The measure is excessive: halved quotas, doubled levies and the introduction of a CO2 tax on steel imports. EURANIMI predicts that this combination will cripple tens of thousands of manufacturing companies across Europe. The main reasons for this are:

• Supply is being squeezed, prices are skyrocketing. Scaling up capacity does not happen overnight; the post-coronavirus recovery made that abundantly clear: record prices, shortages, standstills.
• The red carpet is being rolled out for imports of finished products. Machinery, consumer goods and components produced outside the EU — made from cheaper, untaxed steel — are flooding the European market.
• European manufacturers are losing their competitive edge. Higher costs within the EU, declining market share outside the EU. That is deindustrialisation in fast motion.

The missing link: mirror measures for end products
To prevent Europe from undermining its own industrial base and accelerating the ongoing deindustrialisation, EURANIMI calls on the European Parliament and the Council to request the Commission to thoroughly revise its proposal and, at the same time, supplement it with a mirror mechanism for end products: 50% tariff quota on the steel content of imported end products with ≥20% steel, once a reasonable import threshold has been exceeded.

For example:
A washing machine (+/- 60% steel): once the quota is exhausted, the steel value is subject to a 50% import duty. The consumer price is increased by only 1-2%. Such a mechanism means that European manufacturers are not penalised simply because they produce within the Union.

“Protecting steel production is legitimate, but protect the entire value chain”
“Protecting only the steelworks and their 300,000 jobs is a strategic mistake,” says Christophe Lagrange, board member of EURANIMI. “Protect the entire value chain: forty times more people work there. Otherwise, we will soon be producing European steel for a manufacturing industry that is now only a shadow of its former self. Rob Greve, board member of EURANIMI, adds: “Protecting EU steel production is legitimate, but not at the expense of the processing industry. Otherwise, we will soon lose even more production, jobs and autonomy. A strong steel industry exists by virtue of a strong European market. ”

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AluRVS
Translated from Dutch
27 October 2025