Stainless steel: manufacturers disappointed by the new safeguard measure

No positive impact. Two months after the measures adopted under the new European Safeguard came into force – which reduced the quotas allocated to non-European countries wishing to export steel to the EU by almost 12 million tonnes – companies producing stainless steel bars have seen no improvement in their business or in order intake: “Before the summer, plants were operating at 70 per cent of production capacity and have remained at that level, as confirmed by all the major players in the sector,” explains Massimiliano Burelli, managing director of Cogne Acciai Speciali. This comes as no surprise to those in the know. Burelli himself, in recent weeks, had spoken out on behalf of other companies in the sector, both Italian and European, to protest against the European Commission and a series of decisions which, in the companies’ view, have penalised the stainless steel long products sector, failing in this segment to achieve the objective of rebalancing the weight of imports from third countries against domestic production – a target that was, however, met in other sectors such as carbon steel flat products. ‘The average target of the corrective measure was to reduce the flow of imports by 44 per cent,’ explains Burelli. ‘The review provided for a 56 per cent reduction in quotas for stainless steel bars to the United Kingdom and a 41 per cent reduction to Switzerland, whilst India, the country that has increased its export share the most in recent years and is the leading exporter of bars, saw a relatively moderate reduction of 27 per cent.” As if that were not enough, once the available quota has been exhausted, exporters can also access residual quotas (as is the case with India, which exhausts its monthly quotas as early as the first few days of trading) and for this reason the total volume of quotas actually available to this country is projected to fall by only 19.8 per cent compared with last year. ‘The revised allocation mechanism, designed to limit the operations of operators benefiting from state aid, who operate under conditions of overcapacity and within an ESG framework not aligned with that of the EU, does not appear capable of significantly reducing the effective access of India – our main competitor – to the EU market,” explains Burelli.

A letter signed by all the major players in the sector and sent to the Commission last July has so far received no reply. “According to what has been stated, we are faced with a transitional measure, with a view to a possible recalculation in six months’ time,” explains Burelli. Discussions are ongoing and also involve trade associations such as Eurofer and Federacciai: it is our intention to explain, with figures to hand, that the measure is not working and that, in the case of India, the free trade reduction threshold must be raised, bringing us into line with what has been done for carbon steel”.

Cogne Acciai Speciali, a global company (owned by the Taiwanese multinational Walsin Liwha Corporation) with production sites in the UK and the US as well, is forced to bear the brunt of the extreme regionalisation of the steel markets. The United Kingdom, for example, has imposed a 26 per cent import tariff, complicating relations with Italia throughout the supply chain. As for the United States, “it used to be an important market, but with tariffs at 50 per cent, it has practically been wiped out”, Burelli explains. In general, “last year demand increased, but it was completely absorbed by imports, which wiped out growth and eroded European producers’ market share,” he adds. The CEO explains that 2026 is showing slightly better results than 2025, but “partly due to a review of the safeguard measures, which so far has failed to meet expectations of increased demand for European materials, we are below budget”. Volumes remain low in the automotive sector. The outlook is positive in the energy, aerospace and nuclear sectors, which offer high profit margins; but even here, volumes remain limited.