Turkey and the US are the biggest export partners.
In 2024, the EU exported iron and steel and related articles worth €77.8 billion and imported €73.1 billion.
This resulted in a trade surplus of €4.7 billion, according to the latest Eurostat data.
Compared with 2019, exports rose by 15.2% and imports increased by 23.7%.
Despite these monetary increases, the physical weight of exports declined by 17.3%, and imports decreased by 1.6%.
This indicates “that the value rise was primarily driven by increasing prices”, according to Eurostat.
Turkey was one of the main partners both for exports and imports in 2024 of iron and steel.
The country occupied the first place in exports with a total of €6.2 billion and third place in imports with €3.5 billion.
The United States was the second biggest export partner with €5.4 billion worth of iron and steel, followed by the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Mexico.
Between 2019 and 2024, exports of iron and steel to Mexico increased by 54.1% and to the United States by 51.1%, whilst imports from India went up by 89.2% and from South Korea by 43.0%.
India was the main importer of iron and steel at €3.9 billion. South Korea followed up at €3.6 billion, China at €3.5 billion and the United Kingdom at €3.2 billion.
What are the EU plans for steel imports?
The European Commission has announced plans to tighten import quotas to reduce inflows by a further 15% from April.
This action is intended to prevent an influx of cheap steel into the European market following new tariffs imposed by the United States.
European steel producers — already struggling with high energy prices and competition from Asia and other regions — have warned that the EU could become a dumping ground for cheap steel redirected from the US market, potentially threatening European steel plants.
“In the space of a few years, global over-capacities — particularly in Asia — have hit our plants’ order books hard,” Commission Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné said while introducing an action plan for steel and metals industries.
“This is priority number one: We need to protect our steelworks from unfair foreign competition – wherever it may come from,” Séjourné added.
Video editor • Mert Can Yilmaz
