The European Commission quietly published Correcting Regulation (EU) 2026/1740 on July 31, correcting technical errors in the CBAM default values published on December 31, 2025 — seven months after companies first raised complaints — with no press release and only a hidden note in the Official Journal. Critics note that despite ongoing errors and logical inconsistencies, DG TAXUD maintained that compliance obligations remained in force regardless, effectively making companies pay for official mistakes. The next substantive review of CBAM default values is scheduled by December 2027. Separately, a new PwC study concludes that in every modelled scenario, neither the blast furnace nor the DRI route for European primary steel production is economically viable beyond 2040, with green hydrogen availability critically insufficient — Salzgitter and Saarstahl have secured only 5–6% of annual requirements, while other major producers have abandoned decarbonisation plans entirely. PwC recommends that if European steel capacity is retained for security of supply reasons, scrap-based secondary steel production is the only economically viable basis for doing so.

Tightening supply policy in Indonesia, new import quotas and carbon costs in the EU, and tariff walls in the US pushed benchmark stainless steel prices higher across nearly every major market in the first half of 2026 — even as real demand stayed weak everywhere, turning global trade increasingly into a fight over market access rather than supply and demand.

According to the quota annex of EU Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1457, annual country-specific allocations for key stainless steel product categories are as follows: Category 8 (hot-rolled sheets/strips): Indonesia 35,843t, India 26,019t, Chinese Taiwan 19,984t, Korea 20,735t, Türkiye 13,727t, China 9,515t; Category 9 (cold-rolled sheets/strips): Korea 101,884t, Türkiye 69,038t, Chinese Taiwan 52,985t, South Africa 52,607t, Vietnam 43,853t, China 40,431t, India 38,054t; Category 14 (stainless bars and light sections): India 92,557t, Switzerland 10,786t, China 3,585t; Category 15 (stainless wire rod): India 18,772t, Korea 5,212t, Chinese Taiwan 4,305t, Japan 2,400t, China 1,374t; Category 22 (seamless stainless tubes): India 15,329t, Ukraine 6,524t, Korea 2,392t, China 1,073t. Total annual quotas across all 26 product categories amount to 18,345,922 tonnes, with a 50% out-of-quota duty. Quotas are split into MFN and FTA parts, administered on a first-come, first-served basis, and remain in force through December 31, 2026.

The European Commission published Regulation (EU) 2026/1384, establishing the EU steel trade regime that takes effect 1 July 2026 and replaces the safeguard measures expiring 30 June. The new framework sets annual tariff-rate quotas of 18.3 million mt with a 50% out-of-quota duty, and adds a melt-and-pour origin requirement to curb circumvention. Crucially, the country-specific quota allocations are not yet set: they will come via a separate implementing act that has not been published, even as talks with several FTA partners reportedly continue. The gap leaves importers and supply chains uncertain about how the quota system will function from day one, with stainless mills among those watching the final country splits.

TÜV Rheinland InterCert Kft (hereinafter referred to as “TÜV Rheinland”) in Hungary has been officially authorized by the European Commission, becoming the first designated Notified Body (No. 1008) under the framework of the EU Battery Regulation (EU) 2023/1542.