European Union still concerned over Zelezara – Guarantees that Hesteel will not re-export steel from China to Europe required

Smederevo's Zelezara was the topic of the secret negotiations in Brussels, held in early December, in which representative of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the European Commission took part.

As Politika has learned from several sources, the agenda of the confidential negotiations between Belgrade and Brussels included two topics – the issue of state aid to the Smederevo steel mill, as well as the anti-dumping investigation initiated by the EC in order to determine whether steel had been sold below price.

The details of the talk are strictly confidential, but it has been heard that it is the impression of our negotiators that “everything transpired in our favor”.

Nevertheless, other sources say that these are complicated processes and that no premature conclusions regarding the epilogue of these two processes should be made. What is known is that the EC requires a special report on the steel mill in addition to the regular report by the government's Commission for State Aid Control.

Furthermore, Brussels had previously sent the government a list of concrete questions the authorities needed to prepare answers to. What interested the representatives of the technical mission in Brussels the most was whether the Smederevo steel mill would serve to sell cheep Chinese steel in Europe.

The EU warned that it would not allow “unfair competition” to threaten the European industry, burdened by cheap import.

– We cannot allow unfair competition from artificially cheap imports to threaten our industry. I am determined to use all means possible to ensure that our trading partners play by the rules – said the press release of of Cecilia Malmstrom, EU Trade Commissioner.

China owns around a half of global steel production, but the local demand has slowed down considerably due to a decrease in the pace of the growth of the national economy.

HBIS GROUP Iron & Steel d.o.o. Beograd

Železara Smederevo d.o.o.

Vlada Republike Srbije

EUROPEAN COMMISSION Bruxelles

Hesteel

Zelezara Smederevo

Government of Serbia

European Commission

steel mill

steel manufacture

Commission for State Aid Control

Chinese steel

Cecilia Malmstrom