Interpipe, a Ukrainian producer of seamless steel pipes and railway products, said the European Union’s new steel quotas rest on a “significant statistical error” that has cut its duty-free allowance by 30%.
The quotas took effect on 1 July. Under the revised regime, duty-free quotas for steel imports fall by 47% and out-of-quota tariffs double to 50%.
Interpipe said it expects the European Commission to correct the underlying data before the end of September.
The company, which employs about 9,500 people and currently has 1,150 staff serving in the armed forces, said Ukrainian authorities repeatedly flagged the data problem during consultations on the new rules. A substantial share of Ukraine’s exports to the EU between 2022 and 2024, confirmed by Eurostat, was not fully reflected in the calculations, the company said.
“As a result, Ukraine’s quota for this category is at least 30% lower than it would have been if the correct data had been used,” Interpipe said.
Under the implementing regulation published on 30 June, the commission allocated Ukraine an annual quota of 80,670 tonnes for seamless tubes. Ukraine’s total duty-free quota across all nine steel product categories amounts to 1,049,960 tonnes a year.
Interpipe said the allocation fails to reflect preferential treatment for Ukraine as set out in the regulation adopted by the EU on 19 May 2026. A recital to that law says quotas should account for the interests of EU candidate countries facing an “exceptional and immediate security situation”.
The company said Ukraine has instead been treated in the same way as major global exporters, including countries with non-market excess capacity. This applies both to the quota share open to all trading partners and to the share reserved for countries with an EU free trade agreement, Interpipe said.
The firm’s chief executive Luca Zanotti called the quota level “a severe blow” to Ukraine’s steel industry, which he said continues to operate in frontline regions under wartime conditions.
“The allocation also fails to take into account the significant social and economic consequences it will have for thousands of employees, their families, and the communities that depend on Ukraine’s steel industry,” Zanotti said.
He added that the regulation is meant to address global non-market excess steel capacity. “Ukraine is clearly not part of the problem,” he said.
The European Commission was contacted for comment.
Wider industry pushback
Other industry groups also criticised the EU’s approach to protecting its steel producers.
Orgalim, which represents Europe’s technology industries, said shielding upstream steel producers often comes at the expense of manufacturers further down the supply chain.
The group pointed to the commission’s safeguard probe into grain-oriented electrical steel, a specialised product used in transformers and motors. Orgalim said the probe contradicts the aims of an electrification action plan the commission is due to unveil next week.
“Strategic thinking requires looking beyond the first link in the value chain,” Orgalim said, adding that Brussels “ardently refuses” to do so.
The group warned against an industrial strategy that shields selected upstream sectors from competition while leaving the rest of the value chain to absorb rising costs.
It said the commission is right that Europe cannot rely excessively on volatile global supply chains, but that defining resilience solely through steel production risks weakening manufacturers that build the technologies needed for electrification, decarbonisation and energy independence.