The European Commission (EC) has enacted the Steel and Metals Action Plan, a strategy designed to safeguard Europe’s steel industry. The announcement comes in response to grave concerns raised by steel industry players about the future of the sector. The industry has been in a precarious position for some time, owing to high energy costs and an influx of cheap Asian imports. In December 2024, the European Steel Association (EUROFER) stated that the sector was in a critical state of decline, estimating job losses of nearly 100,000 over the past 15 years and putting capacity utilization at 60%. The EC stated that the industry is “at a critical turning point” and added that the Steel and Metals Action Plan “is delivered in a time when market distorting measures, such as non-market support to global overcapacities and unjustified tariffs on EU steel and aluminium, can negatively impact our economy.” EC President, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “The steel industry has always been a core engine for European prosperity…we have to help our steelmakers who are facing strong headwinds on the global market. With today’s Action Plan we are offering concrete solutions for a thriving European steel industry.”
The plan consists of several key pillars, including:
– Expand and protect European industrial capacities: the EC is tightening current steel safeguards in an effort to tackle global overcapacity. Before the end of the year, the EC will propose a new long-term measure to protect the EU’s steel sector once the current safeguard expires in mid-2026. It will also assess the introduction of the ‘melted and poured rule’, to determine the origin of metal goods and prevent exporters from bypassing trade defense measures.
– Promote circularity: the EC plans to set targets for recycled steel and aluminum in key sectors and assess whether more products should have recycling or recycled content requirements. It will also consider trade measures on metal scrap, a key input for decarbonized steel, to ensure sufficient availability.
– De-risking decarbonization: to boost demand for EU-produced low-carbon metals, the Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator Act will introduce resilience and sustainability criteria for European products in public procurement. The EC also has significant investments planned for initiatives focused on decarbonization.
– Protect quality industrial jobs: the EC states that active labor policies will support skills development and fair job transitions. The European Fair Transition Observatory and the Quality Jobs Roadmap will oversee employment impacts.
Concerns over the state of the industry have been compounded recently by US President Donald Trump’s tariff regime, which imposes a blanket tariff of 25% on steel imports. Major steel producer thyssenkrupp told Expana that there could be significant implications for the sector “if exports destined for the USA are diverted to Europe to a considerable extent due to the tariffs. This would severely damage the European market in the long term”. The company emphasized the need for European safeguards to be adapted to the new trade environment.
In addition to the Steel and Metals Action Plan, the EC has announced a range of countermeasures in response to the implementation of the US tariff regime. According to the EC, the European steel industry consists of about 500 production sites across 22 member states, contributes about €80 billion to the European Union’s GDP and supports over 2.6 million jobs.
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Written by Craig Elliott
