EU Set to Reduce Collection of AD/CV Duties on Steel Products Hit by Safeguards

The European Union plans to temporarily end collection of antidumping and countervailing duties for some products that are subject to steel safeguards, it said in a notice in the April 26 Official Journal. For goods that are subject to AD/CV duties at a level below the 25 percent safeguard on steel recently established by the EU, the EU “considers appropriate that no anti-dumping or countervailing duty should be payable during the relevant period,” the notice said.

A double duty shouldn’t apply either if current AD/CV duties are set at a level above the 25 percent safeguard, the European Commission said in the notice. Instead, only the amount of AD/CV duties above the 25 percent safeguard duty should be collected in order to avoid double counting. “The Commission considers appropriate that only that part of the anti-dumping or countervailing duty which is in excess of the amount of the safeguard duty should be payable during the relevant period,” it said.

The safeguards take the form of a tariff-rate quota, and “there is some uncertainty as to if and when the respective tariff-rate quotas would be exhausted,” the notice said. The announcement seeks to give certainty to importers of products “of those steel product categories which are subject to anti-dumping or anti-subsidy measures [that possibly] would also become subject to the payment of a safeguard duty,” the notice said.

The EU is seeking to avoid a situation where “the combination of anti-dumping or anti-subsidy measures and safeguard measures on the same product could have an effect greater than that intended in terms of the Union’s trade defence policy and objectives, and could place an undesirably onerous burden on certain exporting producers seeking to export to the Union,” it said.

The European Commission included a list of EU AD/CVD orders on goods that are also subject to safeguards and could potentially be affected by the notice. Exporters, importers and other users of the products and their trade associations may submit comments on the notice by May 10.