EU authorities are weighing whether to keep or scrap trade safeguards on grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES), a critical material for transformers, amid a deepening clash between steelmakers and equipment producers. European mills say import protection is failing to stop a flood of cheap foreign steel, while transformer manufacturers insist the measures are doing more harm than good.
GOES has been protected under EU trade measures since 2015, and since January this year the bloc’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) has also applied. Yet according to T&D Europe, an association of grid technology suppliers, protectionist tools have proved ineffective so far: minimum import prices did not increase EU output or significantly improve the availability of higher grades. The group, which represents 80 companies employing over 20,000 people, wants the market opened.
Only two companies produce GOES inside the European Union: Germany’s Thyssenkrupp and Poland’s Stalprodukt. Both have been warning for months that their situation is deteriorating despite anti-dumping and safeguard measures. Thyssenkrupp announced in March that it would halt production at its Isbergues plant for three months, after already suspending operations at Gelsenkirchen and Isbergues around the turn of the year and running at just 50 percent of capacity since January.
Mills bleed as import share grows
– Given the devastating influx of imports into the grain-oriented electrical steel market, we see no alternative to a further temporary closure of our French plant. This measure is necessary to stabilise our company amid further deterioration in order intake. Import prices are sometimes significantly lower than EU production costs – said Angelo Di Martino, CEO of Thyssenkrupp Electrical Steel.
Thyssenkrupp’s data show imports have tripled since 2022 and grew by another 50 percent in 2025, likely accounting for more than half of the European market. The company links the trend to a drastic drop in orders and severe underutilisation of EU plants. Still, it insists the GOES market is attractive, with global demand expected to triple by 2050.
Stalprodukt’s first-quarter report for this year showed transformer sheet sales volume down 35.1 percent, prices down 20 percent and revenues from that business down 47.1 percent year on year. The Polish producer has echoed Thyssenkrupp’s warnings about rising import volumes and below-cost pricing.
Transformer makers warn of costly protectionism
T&D Europe and Spain’s AFBEL counter that imports cover half of the EU market only because domestic suppliers cannot meet real demand. For higher-grade GOES used in energy-efficient transformers, AFBEL says local supply covers just 27 percent of demand, leaving a shortfall of roughly 150,000 tonnes.
AFBEL also warns that keeping GOES protection could raise transformer costs by as much as 30 percent and add up to 800 million euros a year to the bill for EU industry and households. Both associations support domestic production but argue the Commission should pursue that goal through other means than closing the market.
– Protecting European production of magnetic sheets is important, but without safeguarding the competitiveness of transformer producers it can lead to higher grid costs, delays in projects and a weaker European electricity supply chain. You cannot protect one link by weakening another – said Mar Duque, director general of AFBEL.
The dispute over steel regulation and competitiveness will be debated at the Future Mining Forum & Expo, which takes place in Katowice on 9-11 September 2026 and will bring together mining, steel and raw materials industries.
Source: WNP.PL, Photo: Thyssenkrupp Steel / press materials
