By Olena Harmash<\/p>\n
KYIV, May 28 (Reuters) – The European Union’s plan to slash steel imports will hit Ukraine’s war-battered industry and goes against an exemption by the bloc as the country fights \u200cRussia’s invasion, the CEO of Interpipe, one of Ukraine’s biggest industrial companies, said.<\/p>\n
The EU announced this \u200cmonth it would set reduced import quotas of duty-free steel per country by July 1 and apply a 50% tariff to any additional \u200bvolumes, up from 25%. Lawmakers say the measures are designed to shield the bloc’s steel sector from global overproduction though some have expressed support for maintaining higher volumes for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Interpipe CEO Luca Zanotti said that Ukrainian steel would be subject to country-specific curbs despite the fact that less than a year ago the EU had granted it an \u200cexemption for three years until June 2028.<\/p>\n
“They \u2060cannot, on the one hand, say, we’re going to support Ukraine, and on the other hand, damage the industrial sector, which is a very important engine of this country,” he told \u2060Reuters at the company’s office in central Kyiv.<\/p>\n
The European Commission in Brussels and EU representatives in Kyiv did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Steel production in Ukraine is already down by as much as 80% due to the \u200bwar \u200band the European Union curbs could lead to irreversible economic \u200bsetbacks, Zanotti said.<\/p>\n
“We have a shortage of manpower. We \u200chave a shortage of electricity. We have the highest electricity cost, for sure, in Europe,” he said. “Ukraine’s steel industry is not a threat for Europe.”<\/p>\n
Interpipe, owned by Viktor Pinchuk – one of Ukraine’s richest people – is a manufacturer and exporter of steel pipes and railway products.<\/p>\n
SQUEEZE ON EXPORTS AND REVENUE<\/p>\n
The Association of Ukrainian Mining and Metallurgical Sector estimates that the fall in steel exports could lead to a loss of at least $1.2 billion in annual foreign \u200ccurrency revenue and cut tax receipts by about 17.5 billion hryvnias ($398 \u200bmillion).<\/p>\n
Before the war, Ukraine’s steel sector accounted for roughly a third \u200bof exports, generating more than $20 billion a year \u200bin hard currency revenue.<\/p>\n
It lost some of its major plants when Russian troops advanced \u200cin the eastern Donetsk region.<\/p>\n
An OECD report showed \u200bUkraine’s annual steelmaking capacity was \u200babout 8 million metric tons in March 2026 \u2014 a reduction of around 80% from levels before Russia’s invasion in 2022.<\/p>\n
One of Interpipe’s plants is located in the city of Nikopol, around 5 km (3.1 miles) \u200bfrom the front line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Olena Harmash KYIV, May 28 (Reuters) – The European Union’s plan to slash steel imports will hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[39,40,22855,32479,32480,18429,27934,11127,28],"class_list":["post-54873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-eu","tag-european-union","tag-industrial-sector","tag-interpipe","tag-luca-zanotti","tag-steel-imports","tag-steel-industry","tag-steel-sector","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}