Press Release: New EU-Russia Steel Agreement opens way for increased steel imports from Russia

On 9 July 2002 , negotiators from the European Commission and the Russian government signed a new EU-Russia agreement designed to increase imports of certain Russian steel products into the EU. The Agreement increases quantitative limits for the import of steel products such as flat and long products into the EU for the years 2002 to 2004. All the products covered by this agreement are not impacted by the recent US protectionist measures and as such excluded from the scope provisional EU safeguards on steel imports approved at the end of March 2002.