G/SG/N/10/EU/1/Suppl.12  
 
21 December 202 1 
(21-9563) Page: 1/4 
Committee on Safeguards  Original: English  
 
NOTIFICATION UNDER ARTICLE 12.1(C) OF THE AGREEMENT ON S AFEGUARDS  
EUROPEAN UNION 
Certain Steel Products  
Supplement  
The following notification, dated  and received on 20  December 202 1, is being circulated at the 
request of the delegation of the European Union.  
_______________  
Pursuant to Article 12.1(c) of the WTO Agreement on Safeguards (Safeguards Agreement), the 
European Union notifies that a review safeguard investigation has been initiated as follows:  
1. Specify the date when the investigation was initiated  
The European Commission ( "the Commission ") initiated the review investigation on 
17 December  2021.  
A copy of the Notice of Initiation1, which includes inter alia the scope and the applicable rules of 
procedure of the invest igation, is attached. The Notice has been published in the Official Journal of 
the European Union .2 
2. Specify the product subject to the investigation   
The product subject to this investigation is certain steel products (the "product concerned "). See 
Annex.  
3. Provide the reasons for the initiation of the investigation   
The European Union prolonged the EU steel safeguard measure as of 1  July 2021.  
(See noti fications G/SG/N/8/EU/1/Suppl.2  – G/SG/N/10/EU/1/Suppl.11  – 
G/SG/N/11/EU/1/Suppl.8 ; and G/SG/N/8/EU/1/Suppl.2 /Corr.1 – G/SG/N/10/EU/1/Suppl.11 /Corr.1 
–  G/SG/N/11/EU/1/Suppl.8/Corr.1. ) 
In the regulation prolonging the safeguard measure3, the Commission indicated "in order to keep in 
the meantime the operation of the safeguard adapted to market evolution and in line with the 
interest of all stakeholders, the Commission will undertake a functioning review ". 
 
1 A copy of the Notice of Initiation has been submitted electronically. To consult this document, please 
contact Anne Richards ( anne.richards@wto.org ) of the Rules Division.  
2 OJ C 509, 17.12.2021, p. 12.  
3 COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) 2021 /1029 of 24 June 2021 amending Commission 
Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/159 to prolong the safeguard measure on imports of certain steel products, 
OJ L 225, 25.6.2021, p.1, recital (85).  G/SG/N/10/EU/1/Suppl.12  
 
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  The Commission intends to focus the i nvestigation on the following issues in order to examine 
whether adjustments to the functioning of the measure are justified:  
A. Allocation and management of tariff -rate quotas  
B. Crowding -out of traditional trade flows  
C. Update of the list of developing WTO membe r countries excluded from the scope of the 
measures based on their most recent level of imports  
D. Level of liberalisation  
E. Other changes of circumstances that may require an adjustment to the level of allocation 
of the tariff -rate quota  
4. Provide a point of con tact for the investigation and identify the preferred means for  
corresponding.  
Commission address for correspondence:  
European Commission  
Directorate -General for Trade  
Directorate G, Unit G5  
Office: CHAR 03/66  
1049 Bruxelles/Brussel  
BELGIQUE/BELGIË  
E-mail address:  
TRADE -SAFE009 -REVIEW@ec.europa.eu  
Enrique.Arrieta@ec.europa.eu  
5. Provide the deadlines and procedures for importers, exporters and other interested 
parties to present evidence and their views, including (i) deadlines and procedures for 
Members and exporters to identify themselves as interested parties, if so required, to 
participate in the investigation, and ( ii) the date of an intended public hearing as 
provided for in Article 3.1 . 
In order to  obtain all relevant information deemed necessary for the investigation, interested parties 
are hereby invited to make their views known, submit information and provide supporting evidence 
to the Commission. This information and supporting evidence must re ach the Commission by 
10 January  2022 (COB Brussels time) . 
Interested parties are requested to clearly structure their submissions and state in their 
correspondence (i) which of the above review issue(s), and (ii) which product category(ies) is (are) 
conce rned by their submission.  
Possibility to comment on other parties' submissions  
In order to guarantee the rights of defence, interested parties should have the possibility to comment 
on the information submitted by other interested parties. When doing so, i nterested parties may 
only address the issues raised in the other interested parties' submissions and may not raise new 
issues.  
Such comments must reach the Commission within seven  days from the moment the submissions 
are made available for inspection by i nterested parties. The Commission may also issue specific 
instructions on the structure of the rebuttals at a later stage in the proceeding. In such case, the 
Commission would inform interested parties via a Note to the file in Tron accordingly.  
Access to  the file available for inspection for interested parties is made via Tron.tdi at the following 
address: https://tron.trade.ec.europa.eu/tron/TDI . Please follow the instructions on that page to get 
access.  G/SG/N/10/EU/1/Suppl.12  
 
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  The outlined timeframe is without prejudice to the Commission's right to request additional 
information from interested parties in duly justified cases.  
Given the need to complete the review in a short timeframe and the fact that interested parties will 
be given the possibility to comment on other parties ' submissions, which will ensure sufficient 
opportunities to defend their interests, the Commission will not organise hearings for the purpose of 
this investigation, unless exceptional circumstances so require.  
Instructions for making written submissions an d correspondence  
Information submitted to the Commission for the purpose of trade defence proceeding shall be free 
from copyrights. Interested parties, before submitting to the Commission information and/or data 
which is subject to third party copyrights,  must request specific permission to the copyright holder 
explicitly allowing the Commission a) to use the information and data for the purpose of this trade 
defence proceeding and b) to provide the information and/or data to interested parties to this 
investigation in a form that allows them to exercise their rights of defence.  
All written submissions provided by interested parties for which confidential treatment is requested 
shall be labelled "Limited ".4 Parties submitting information in the course of this investigation are 
invited to reason their request for confidential treatment.  
Parties providing "Limited " information are required to furnish non -confidential summaries of it 
pursuant to Article 8 of EU Regulation 2015/4785 and Article 5 of EU Regul ation 2015/7556, which 
will be labelled "For inspection by interested parties ". Those summaries should be sufficiently 
detailed to permit a reasonable understanding of the substance of the information submitted in 
confidence and must reach the Commission at the same time of the "Limited " version.  
If a party providing confidential information fails to show good cause for a confidential treatment 
request or does not furnish a non -confidential summary of it in the requested format and quality, 
the Commission  may disregard such information.  
Interested parties are strongly encouraged to make all written submissions and requests 
via TRON.tdi  (https://tron.trade.ec.europa.eu/tron/TDI ), including scanned powers of attorney 
where appropriate.  
By using TRON.tdi or e -mail, interested parties express their agreement with the rules applicable to 
electronic submissions contained in the document " CORRE SPONDENCE WITH THE EUROPEAN 
COMMISSION IN TRADE DEFENCE CASES " published on the website of  the Directorate -General  
for Trade: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2011/june/ tradoc_148003.pdf . 
The interested parties must indicate their name, address, telephone and a valid e -mail address and 
they should ensure that the provided e -mail address is a functioning official business email that is 
checked on a daily basis. Once contac t details are provided, the Commission will communicate with 
interested parties by TRON.tdi or email only, unless they explicitly request to receive all documents 
from the Commission by another means of communication or unless the nature of the document to  
be sent requires the use of a registered mail. For further rules and information concerning 
correspondence with the Commission including principles that apply to submissions via TRON.tdi, 
interested parties should consult the communication instructions wi th interested parties referred to 
above.  
Any submission of views and information after the above deadlines may be disregarded.  
 
 
4 A "Limited" document is a document which is considered confiden tial pursuant to Article 8 of 
Regulation (EU) 2015/478, Article 5 of Regulation (EU) 2015/755 and Article 3.2 of the WTO Agreement on  
Safeguards. It is also a document protected pursuant to Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the 
European Parliame nt and of the Council (OJ L 145, 31.5.2001, p. 43).  
5 OJ L83, 27.03.2015, p.16.  
6 OJ L123, 19.5.2015, p.33.  G/SG/N/10/EU/1/Suppl.12  
 
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  ANNEX  
Product category 
Number  Product category  
1 Non Alloy  and Other Alloy Hot Rolled Sheets and Strips  
2 Non Alloy and Other Alloy Cold Rolled Sheets  
3.A 
Electrical Sheets (other than GOES)  
3.B 
4.A 
Metallic Coated Sheets  
4.B 
5 Organic Coated Sheets  
6 Tin Mill products  
7 Non Alloy  and Other Alloy Quarto Plates  
8 Stainless Hot Rolled Sheets and Strips  
9 Stainless Cold Rolled Sheets and Strips  
10 Stainless Hot Rolled Quarto Plates  
12 Non Alloy  and Other Alloy Merchant Bars and Light Sections  
13 Rebars  
14 Stainless Bars and Light Sections  
15 Stainless Wire Rod  
16 Non Alloy and Other Alloy Wire Rod  
17 Angles, Shapes and Sections of Iron or Non Alloy Steel  
18 Sheet Piling  
19 Railway Material  
20 Gas pipes  
21 Hollow sections  
22 Seamless Stainless Tubes and Pipes  
24 Other Seamless Tubes  
25A 
Large welded tubes  
25B 
26 Other welded pipes  
27 Non-alloy and other alloy cold finished bars  
28 Non Alloy Wire  
__________