According to media reports, the Indian government recently tried to negotiate with the European Union (EU) about an exemption from the EU Carbon Border Tax (CBAM), which will start in October 2023. One reason for this is that the introduction of CBAM is currently expected to increase the price of Indian steel and stainless steel by up to 35%.

The Indian steel ministry may now have given the European stainless steel producers enough ammunition to raise a stink in Brussels. The planned Indian capacity expansion to 30 million tonnes of stainless steel per year is likely to be a huge thorn in the side of the EU mills. Moreover, Indian stainless steel is considered to be particularly CO2-intensive due to the high proportion of fossil fuels used in its production.

After the massive increase in Chinese stainless steel imports in 2022 into the European Union, the jump in which is very likely to trigger a review of the existing anti-dumping measure against China or possibly even initiate its own anti-dumping case, the EU mills are also likely to take swift action against this Indian capacity expansion