Wednesday, April 15, 2026
UK reaps consequences of brexit as steel exports to EU at risk
Thry add that the decision by EU lawmakers and member states after late night talks on Monday, will reduce duty-free quotas by 47%, with exact country allocations have yet to be determined:
Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein will not be subject to tariffs as member of the European Economic Area, but the UK will, highlighting the economic disadvantages of Brexit.
The European steel industry said the radical new measures would help pull the industry “back from the brink” of collapse.
Axel Eggert, the director general of the European Steel Association, Eurofer, said the measures would help by “curbing unsustainable import pressure … and creating a gap for EU manufacturers to produce 15m extra tonnes of steel to meet local demand”.
The latest data showed imports grew to record levels at the end of 2025, to 9.9m tonnes in the final quarter from 7.4m tonnes year on year.
The new measures, which will come into force in July, will cap imports of steel in the EU to 18.7m tonnes a year, with country quotas to be negotiated across 28 discrete product types.
But with the EU now the UK’s largest market, with 1.8m tonnes of exports a year or 10% of the new quota, the pressure is mounting on Keir Starmer to ensure duty-free quotas to match UK sales into the bloc.
UK Steel, the British industry body, said it was “crucial that the UK and EU reach a sensible agreement regarding access to each other’s quota systems”.
The UK has a strong card in negotiations, having also announced it plans to impose 50% tariffs on imports from third countries from 1 July with quotas cut by 60%, higher than the EU’s 47% reduction.
As the UK and the EU were “each other’s largest export markets” there was “a clear, mutually beneficial deal to be had” to stop the “real bad actors”, UK Steel added.
This is precisely the sort of bad impact on the UK economy that many warned about in 2016. The so-called easy-deal with the EU never emerged and we are left playing catch-up.
