Eurometeaux | Call for strict Rules of Origin within EU-UK Free Trade Agreement

In the context of current Free Trade Agreement negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom, Eurometaux, the European metals industry association, affirms its position in favour of strict rules of origin for the metals sector and against any further relaxation of the rules of origin. Please find this position paper in the Annex.

The risk from more relaxed rules of origin is that metals products coming from third countries would easily gain “origin” status and be exported to the EU market. This could endanger European production of metals, as well as the recycling activities of our industry.

Such a risk also concerns rules of origin on batteries. In April 2020, ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association) published a Position Paper on the EU-UK trade deal requesting an exception to the strict rules of origin for articles involved in trade of batteries for electric vehicles. This would result in less use of EU and UK produced metals (and other EU produced material) for car manufacturing and would open the door for even more Chinese metals into the European market. Our sector fears that a relaxation of rules of origin on imported batteries (e.g. for electric vehicles) could produce detrimental effects on Europe’s battery value chains and their materials supply (e.g. non-ferrous metals).

Link to the Eurometeaux | Call for strict Rules of Origin within EU-UK Free Trade Agreement