However, he claimed that the result was the opposite. After the introduction of the Green Deal, Green Steel, taxes on raw materials, safeguards, import quotas, and finally the Carbon Boundary Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), policies were implemented without a sufficient understanding of how the steel market works or the needs of Europe's vast production supply chain. industrial policy. He noted that in 2025, the EU recognized that the final benchmarks needed to calculate CBAM costs would not be available until early 2026, forcing companies to make purchasing decisions without knowing the future value of their imports. Although the reference values have since been published, he argued that they remain too high to be used in practice to make commercial decisions, resulting in consumers becoming dependent on the emissions data claimed by steel manufacturers.
He noted that these emissions will eventually have to be verified by EU-accredited certification bodies, however, these bodies have not yet been appointed and cannot be appointed until mid-2027. According to Gennari, this means that companies will be purchasing steel for about 18 months without knowing its actual regulatory cost. He added that fluctuations in the price of carbon certificates, an uncertain calculation methodology, an incomplete certification system and the requirement for importers to create financial reserves for obligations that cannot yet be accurately calculated create conditions in which enterprises cannot operate effectively.
Import quotas: an industry frozen by regulatory uncertainty
He also argued that the situation was being exacerbated by new protective import quotas. According to Gennari, European companies have been waiting for months to find out what volumes of imports will be available, how quotas will be distributed, when the new system will come into force, whether Russian and Belarusian quotas will be redistributed and whether country quotas will be introduced. These questions have been answered.
