Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has formally requested that the European Commission exempt Serbia from the EU’s proposed new tariffs and quotas on steel. Speaking at a joint press conference with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Belgrade, Vucic said he submitted a letter seeking relief for candidate countries and expressed hope that the EU would ease the impact.

The European Commission earlier proposed measures to protect the EU steel industry from global overcapacity. The plan would cap duty-free imports at 18.3 million tons per year, a 47% reduction from the 2024 quota, and double tariffs on imports exceeding that limit to 50%.

Vucic said that the measures would heavily affect Serbia’s largest steelmakers, including HBIS Serbia, a unit of China’s HBIS Group. In 2024, the EU imported EUR556 million worth of iron and steel from Serbia, down by 9.5% year-on-year. Serbia produced about 1.4 million tons of crude steel last year, while HBIS Serbia’s capacity is 2.2 million tons of finished products per year.