EU Lays Out Plan to Implement DSB Finding on Steel Safeguard Measure

The European Commission will implement the findings of the World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body on the EU's safeguard measures on imports of certain steel products, the EC said Aug. 24. The commission said it will bring its safeguard measure into conformity with the WTO Agreement on Safeguards and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, inviting comments from interested parties by Sept. 14.

Turkey launched its WTO challenge to the safeguards measure in 2020. A panel report was circulated in April, then adopted by the DSB in May, with the recommendation to bring the measure into compliance with WTO rules. The panel said that the safeguard did not explain well enough how the increase in imports took place as a result of the unforeseen developments that had been identified and that two central elements of the determination of a threat of serious injury were not based on facts.

"For the purpose of implementation, the Commission intends to supplement Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/159 on the above points," the commission said. "Interested parties are thus invited to submit comments exclusively on those points."