India proposes retaliatory duties worth $1.1 bn against EU’s steel curbs

New Delhi: India could impose additional tariffs worth $1.1 billion on some products originating from the European Union in retaliation against the bloc’s extended safeguard duties on its steel imports and has begun an exercise to firm up the list of items.

“We are working on the products that would be subject to higher tariffs. These will mostly be steel products,” an official told ET.

The two sides failed to reach an agreement on the concessions that the EU can offer India to mitigate the adverse impact of the safeguard duties it levies on some steel imports, which it extended by two years till 2026.


New Delhi, Wednesday, informed the World Trade Organization (WTO) about its intent.

“The issue could be taken up at the next round of bilateral free trade talks with the EU next week,” said another official.

New Delhi flagged to the WTO that EU’s safeguard measures, which resulted in a $1.1 billion duty mop-up for the bloc, caused $4.4 billion in trade loss to India between 2018-23.

The measures imposed by the EU consist of tariff-rate quotas imposed on 26 steel product categories with an out-of-quota duty of 25%.

India’s iron and steel and their products exports to the EU increased to $6.64 billion in FY24 from $6.1 billion in FY23.

India, China and Russia and five other countries had criticised the EU’s decision to extend the levy on certain steel products, arguing that the measure, imposed after the US slapped additional duties on certain categories of steel imports from the bloc in 2018, was inconsistent with the global trade body’s rules.

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India took retaliatory action against additional duties on its steel and aluminium exports to the US by imposing additional duties on 28 products but they agreed to withdraw their disputes at WTO and these additional duties last year.

In 2021, India had proposed to impose additional import duties worth €292 million on select products from the EU in retaliation.

Later it proposed additional customs duties of 15% on the import of 22 products, including whisky, cheese and diesel engine parts from the UK in retaliation to the latter’s decision to impose restrictions on steel products after it exited the EU.