Provisional safeguard measures imposed on imports of certain steel products
The European Commission has imposed provisional safeguard measures on certain steel products by Implementing Regulation 2018/1013 Official Journal ref L181.
Affected products, en route to the EU before 19 July 2018, whose destination cannot be changed, will not be subject to the quotas or additional duty, provided proof of contract and other supporting documents are presented to customs, and may be entered to free circulation. If these documents are not immediately available it is recommended that the quotas are claimed as a precaution.
Products listed, and grouped by product number, in Annex I will be subject to Tariff quotas for a period of 200 days from 19 July 2018 or until the quota exhausts, if earlier.
The quota order numbers (to be claimed in box 39 of the SAD) and volumes which can be imported before incurring safeguard duties are listed in Annex V.
When the quota is exhausted or where product categories do not benefit from the quota, additional duty of 25% will apply to the customs value of the imported product.
If any provisional safeguard duty is incurred it must be paid at the time of clearance (that is, not by lodging a security).
The declarant is responsible for claiming the quota. If a claim is not made on the SAD document when there is still an available balance, the additional duty of 25% will be charged.
The origin of the product is determined by non-preferential origin rules.
Unless otherwise specified, customs duties in force will also apply, this includes any anti-dumping and countervailing duties.
The import duty for these goods is usually zero, often due to preferential arrangements existing for some countries. These arrangements do not eliminate the liability to the safeguard duty. Only a successful quota claim will exempt the liability to the 25% additional duty. Therefore, to enable the correct calculation of duty, preference should not be claimed.
The quotas will be administered on a first come first served basis, as per Articles 49-54 of regulation 2015/2447.
Products within the groups which originate in the countries marked with an X in Annex IV or originate in any other non-EU country (except Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein) will be subject to these quotas, later followed by additional duties.
Products within the groups which originate in the countries listed in Annex IV, but not marked with an X are exempt from these measures.
Where anti-dumping and countervailing duties also apply the Commission will ensure that the combined effect of these measures do not exceed the highest level of the safeguard or anti-dumping/countervailing duties in place.
USA imports are also subject to separate additional duties imposed by Regulation 2018/886 on 22 June 2018.
Interested parties may make comment on the findings of the investigation to the Commission, for its consideration when reaching its final conclusion.
Quota balances can be viewed on the following quota database.
If in doubt about the measures that apply please enter the commodity code and country of origin into the Commission’s Taric database.
To apply these measures the following changes have been made to CHIEF.
The tariff quotas referred to in Annex V have been inserted, for further details see regulation 2018/1013. To claim a quota enter code 120 in box 36 and enter the relevant quota number in box 39 of the SAD declaration.
To enable CHIEF to calculate the safeguard correctly when tariff quotas are not claimed or are exhausted the full duty on the affected commodities has been changed to 25%.
A full duty suspension measure (FB) has been inserted against all the affected commodities. This must only be used for imports from Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein or for imports of the goods listed in the product groups from countries not marked with an X in Annex IV. Details on how this must be declared in Box 47c of your declaration can be found in UK Trade Tariff: imports and community transport inwards.
Affected products that were en route to the EU before 19 July 2018 and whose destination cannot be changed may use the DTY override function, provided proof of contract and other supporting documents are presented to customs. If these documents are not immediately available, as previously stated, it is recommended that the quotas are claimed as a precaution.
When the remaining quota balance falls below 10% a security to the value of the potential duty must be lodged before customs clearance. This may be reclaimed in full or part depending on the percentage of the quota allocated to the claim.
CHIEF was updated on 31 July 2018. Post clearance action will be required for affected products clearing customs between 19 July 2018 and 31 July 2018.
More information is available in tariff quota notice 104.
Important
In any case where the information contained in this notice is at variance with that published in the official journal of the European Union the latter will reflect the correct legal position.The HMRC tarrif, volume 1, section 1 refers
Tarrif and Quota Management Team
Southend on Sea
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