In the latest twist in the proposed EU ferroalloy safeguards story, EU members were expected to vote on Monday 17th November for a new set of proposed measures, based on a combination of import quotas and variable tariff rates. The MMTA understands that the vote will now take place on Tuesday 18th November.
The vote was previously postponed from Friday 14th November, after the EU took the unusual step of notifying the WTO Committee on Safeguards of its proposals two days earlier, to give members time to examine these. But the vote needs to be be held in time for the 18th November deadline to publish the safeguard measures in the Official Journal of the European Commission and for them to come into force on day of publication, to last for three years until 17th November 2028.
This comes after the vote in July divided EU member countries, and the Commission extended the deadline to publish its proposals to the maximum, from 18th September for another two months. The decision has now come to the wire, with the unusual step by the European Commission to throw its weight behind the proposals, with days to go.
The proposal, floated earlier in the year, to include calcium-silicon and silicon metal in the safeguard measures has been dropped, limiting the proposed measures to ferro-manganese, ferro-silico-manganese, ferro-silicon and ferro-silico-magnesium. The new proposal sets a tariff-rate quotas (TRQ) at 25% below the 2022-2024 average level. Imports within the quota will be duty-free, while imports beyond that to carry a duty equal to the differential between a minimum import price and the actual sales price of the imported ferroalloy. The floor prices are set as follows:
| Product type | HS / CN Code | Price threshold (€/tonne) |
| Ferro-manganese | 7202 11, 7202 19 | 1,316 |
| Ferro-silicon | 7202 21, 7202 29 | 2,408 |
| Ferro-silico-manganese | 7202 30 | 1,392 |
| Ferro-silico-magnesium | 7202 99 30 | 3,647 |
The proposed quotas, based on origin, still exclude ferroalloys originating in Ukraine, but include Norway and Iceland, despite these two ferroalloy producing countries being in the European Economic Area. Portions of the import quotas are allocated, by product, to producing countries with over 5% market share. There are some exemptions, by product, for developing countries.
Norway, whose major producer Elkem halted ferrosilicon production last month at both its Norway and Iceland sites, citing poor market conditions, is known to be objecting to the measures. Among EU members, Hungary has outright opposition on the grounds of rising costs, with foreign minister Péter Szijjártó issuing a strongly worded social media statement on Friday.
The last-minute push by the European Commission to get the safeguard measure through came as the European ferroalloys association Euroalliages and steel association Eurofer warned of an existential threat to the region’s ferroalloys industry, urging EU member countries to vote for the TRQ proposal. In a statement on LinkedIn Euroalliages warned that “without decisive action, Europe risks undermining the very foundations of its defence, energy, and technology sectors”. EU producers share of the EU ferroalloy market has fallen to 24% due to an influx of imports over the last four years, and the safeguard measures aim to restore this to 30-40% where it was at the start of the decade.
At the time of writing, the European Commission has not commented further on the progress of the vote on the safeguard proposal, referring enquires to the notification it had issued to the WTO.
