Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 20 May 2026, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached a provisional political agreement on two Commission regulations implementing the tariff elements of the EU-US Joint Statement of 21 August 2025. The main regulation (COM(2025)0471) eliminates remaining EU customs duties on US industrial goods and grants preferential market access for US seafood and non-sensitive agricultural products. The second regulation (COM(2025)0472) extends the suspension of EU duties on US lobster imports (including processed lobster) retroactively from 1 August 2025. Both regulations sunset on 31 December 2029 and include a Commission safeguard mechanism to suspend concessions if the US fails to meet its Joint Statement commitments.

On 13 April 2026 the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached a provisional political agreement, in trilogue with the Commission, on the new EU steel safeguard regulation that will replace the existing WTO-safeguard-based measure (Regulation (EU) 2019/159, last tightened by Implementing Regulation 2025/612) expiring on 30 June 2026. The agreement adopts the core architecture of the Commission's October 2025 proposal (procedure 2025/0726(COD)): an overall duty-free tariff-rate quota of approximately 18.3 million tonnes per year — a roughly 47% reduction versus the 2024 safeguard quotas — covering 30 product categories, with the out-of-quota customs duty raised from 25% to 50%. The deal also introduces a mandatory "country of melt and pour" declaratory requirement on steel imports and obliges the Commission to assess, within two years, whether the country of melt-and-pour should become the basis for country-specific TRQ allocations (closing transhipment loopholes that have allowed Chinese-melted steel to enter via third-country processors). The co-legislators added a reinforced and time-bound review mechanism: a first Commission review of product scope within six months of entry into force, with subsequent biennial scope reviews thereafter. Statutorily, this is a NEW instrument — a regulation adopted under the ordinary legislative procedure, not an implementing act under the WTO Agreement on Safeguards / Regulation (EU) 2015/478 — so it is filed as a new action with a `responds_to` link to the predecessor regime. Formal adoption by Council and EP plenary is expected in May 2026 ahead of the 1 July 2026 application date.

Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2605, adopted 12 December 2025 and published in the Official Journal on 30 December 2025, replaces the Annex to Regulation (EU) 2021/2278, the EU's biennial autonomous Common Customs Tariff (CCT) suspension list for products "not produced in the Union in sufficient quantity." The update adds new full and partial duty suspensions (down to 0%) for battery-production chemical inputs — including lithium metal, lithium hydroxide monohydrate and lithium carbonate, several rare-earth and yttrium/scandium compounds, cobalt oxalate, and lithium hexafluorophosphate (electrolyte salt, rated at 2.7% rather than 0%) — with a mandatory review clause for the battery-related lines by 31 December 2026. It also renews review dates for existing suspensions and removes entries no longer judged to be in the Union's economic interest. The regulation entered into force on publication but applies from 1 January 2026.

The European Commission initiated an anti-dumping investigation on 19 December 2025 (Case AD747, notice published in OJ C/2025/6744) into imports of sodium benzoate (CN code ex 2916 31 00, CUS 0023120-9, CAS 532-32-1) originating in China, following a complaint from Lanxess Chemical B.V. filed on 10 November 2025. The Commission first made imports subject to customs registration via Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/366 of 19 February 2026. On 27 July 2026 the Commission adopted Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1854, published 28 July 2026, imposing provisional antidumping duties ranging from 57.6% to 116.4% by exporter. The measure remains provisional pending the investigation's final outcome.

The European Commission initiated an anti-dumping investigation on 19 December 2025 (Case AD748, notice published in OJ C/2025/6741) into imports of benzyl alcohol (CN code 2906 21 00, CAS 100-51-6) originating in China, following a complaint from EU producers LANXESS Deutschland GmbH, LANXESS Chemical B.V. and Vynova Advanced Organics Maastricht B.V. The Commission first made imports subject to customs registration via Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/362 of 17 February 2026, preserving the option to apply duties retroactively. On 28-29 July 2026 the Commission published a provisional antidumping duty on Chinese benzyl alcohol, reported by trade press to be in the 52.6%-71.2% range pending independent confirmation of the exact implementing regulation and per-exporter rates. The measure remains provisional pending the investigation's final outcome, expected within the statutory deadline.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1564 of 24 July 2025 is the EU's largest-ever trade countermeasure package: additional customs duties on approximately €93 billion of US-origin goods (Annexes I–XIII) plus an export prohibition on specified EU products to the United States (Annex XIV), adopted under Regulation (EU) No 654/2014 (the EU commercial-policy enforcement regulation) in response to the second Trump administration's Section 232 reinstatement and automobile tariffs. The regulation supersedes and repeals Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/778 and three earlier rebalancing CIRs. Application was suspended from 5 August 2025 following the EU-US trade framework agreement of 27 July 2025; the suspension was extended by a further six months from 4 February 2026. CIR 2025/1564 remains in force as a conditionally-reinstateable rebalancing framework while negotiations continue.

Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1303 of 23 June 2025, published in the Official Journal on 30 June 2025 and applying from 1 July 2025, amends Regulation (EU) 2021/2278 and replaces the EU's autonomous Common Customs Tariff (CCT) duty-suspension list for agricultural and industrial inputs "not produced in the Union in sufficient quantity." The revision extends or newly grants reduced/zero duty treatment to 79 industrial products across 48 six-digit CN tariff subheadings, while also raising import duties on four specific products: rubber thread and cord (CN 4007.00.00), certain flexible plastic sheets/plates/film (CN 3920.10.89), and fixed vegetable/microbial fats and oils (CN 1515.60.99). The measure is erga omnes (applies to all trading partners, not a bilateral concession).

Regulation (EU) 2025/1227, published 20 June 2025, imposes an additional 50% ad valorem customs duty on top of the standard Common Customs Tariff rate on roughly 101 tariff lines of agricultural products originating in or exported from Russia or Belarus, closing the remaining gap in the agri-tariff regime first opened in 2024. Fertilisers from the two countries face a separate, gradually escalating specific duty — starting around EUR 40-45 per tonne on top of the existing 6.5% ad valorem rate for the 2025-26 period, rising in annual steps to EUR 430 per tonne by 2028. The measure enters into force 1 July 2025 and is explicitly framed by the Council and Parliament as a further squeeze on Russian export revenue used to fund the war against Ukraine, extending the July 2024 agri-tariff regulation (EU) 2024/1392 to cover the products it left out.

The European Commission adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1206 on 19 June 2025, suspending GSP+ tariff preferences on non-fuel ethanol (CN codes 2207 10 and 2207 20, excluding TARIC-coded fuel-use ethanol) imported from Pakistan, effective 21 June 2025 for two years. The measure invokes the safeguard clause (Article 30 of Regulation (EU) No 978/2012) after finding that a surge in duty-free Pakistani ethanol — 27% of all EU non-fuel ethanol imports in 2024 (roughly 215,929 tonnes), priced around 25% below EU producer prices — caused serious injury to the EU bioethanol industry. Reinstated Common Customs Tariff duties are approximately EUR 243/tonne (CN 2207 10) and EUR 129/tonne (CN 2207 20).

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1132 of 3 June 2025 reinstated the ~40 tariff-rate quotas on Ukrainian agricultural products (cereals, poultry/eggs, sugar, tomatoes, mushrooms and other lines) established under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement/DCFTA, after the temporary Autonomous Trade Measures regulation (EU) 2024/1392 — which had suspended all such quotas and given Ukraine unlimited duty-free access — expired on 5 June 2025 without renewal. The regulation applied from 6 June 2025, with quota volumes pro-rated at 7/12 of the annual amount to cover the remainder of the year (e.g. 5.83 million kg for preserved tomatoes, 291,667 kg each for two preserved-mushroom lines). Imports above the quota ceilings revert to standard Common Customs Tariff duties.