Auto giants tumble as EU’s new steel tariffs spark industry panic
The BMW brand logo can be seen in the BMW four -cylinder model (also known as BMW Tower and BMW High Building), which is the main management building of the vehicle manufacturer BMW and symbolic structure.
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The shares of Europe’s largest automobile manufacturers have been traded on Wednesday in the midst of the concern that the European Union’s latest efforts to protect the domestic steel market threaten the automotive sector of the region.
The European Commission, which is the executive branch of the EU, announced On Tuesday, he announced that the region plans to increase steel tariffs and sharply reduce import quota in order to provide “strong and permanent protection” to the steel industry of the region.
The proposal contains pressure to limit non -tariff import volumes to 18.3 million tons a year; This reflects a decrease of 47 %compared to 2024 steel quotas and involves doubleing tariffs in excess imports to 50 %.
The planned measures were not met positively in Europe’s automotive industry.
Europe’s Stoxx Automobile and its Parts Index caused regional losses with a decrease of more than 2.2 %at 10:55 London time on Wednesday (ET 05:55).
In response to the EU’s announcement, the European Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA), an industrial lobby group in question The offer goes very far and threatens automobile manufacturers with higher and administrative costs.
ACEA General Manager Sigrid de Vries said that European car manufacturers provide about 90 %of their direct steel purchases from the EU, and “most effectively, the effective continuation of protection measures on the European market prices are concerned about the inflationary effect on the market prices”.
He added: “We do not object to a certain level of protection for a commodity industry like steel, but we think that the parameters proposed by the commission go too far in surrounding the European market.”
In Acea, Vries called for a “better balance” between the news of European manufacturers and steel users in this measure.
BMW shares experienced a harsh decline
Looking at individual stocks, Germany’s BMW It fell more than 9 %on Wednesday morning and fell to the bottom of the Pan-European Stoxx 600 index.
Munich -based car manufacturer, which has been reported to have the worst trading day since September last year, Giving On Tuesday, a new profit warning came to the slow growth in China and the ongoing effect of US import tariffs.
Germany’s Mercedes-Benz Group, Porsche And VolkswagenMeanwhile, he experienced more than 2 %decrease.
France’s shares Renault and on the Milan list Stellantis It was 1.9 %and 0.8 %lower, respectively.
Rico Luman, a senior sector economist in the Netherlands Bank Ing, described BMW’s profit warning as “disappointment” and said that there is no positive signal about many difficulties faced by European car manufacturers.
“In his presentation of the second quarter figures, they were still quite optimistic about confrontation and protecting margins, but this relative optimism seems to have faded,” he said in a statement to CNBC. he said.
