The Commission initiated 32 new investigations last year – just slightly below the record high of 2024, shows the Commission’s 2025 report on the EU’s trade defence activities, adopted yesterday. Such demand reflects an ongoing increase in unfair trade practices harming EU industry, and remains particularly pronounced in the chemical industry, and in the iron and steel sector.
Protecting European jobs and small businesses
As well as opening a high number of new investigations, the Commission imposed 26 definitive trade defence measures in 2025. By the end of the year, the Commission had 232 trade defence measures in place – protecting around 637,000 manufacturing jobs in the European Union.
220 of the 232 trade defence measures in place at the end of 2025 were definitive. 30 of these concerned anti-dumping cases, alongside two anti-subsidy probes. In 2025, provisional duties were imposed in 27 anti-dumping cases. No provisional anti-subsidy measures were imposed.
The Commission applied measures retroactively in three cases, with measures backdated to before the introduction of provisional measures. This indicated the Commission’s willingness to call upon the trade defence instruments at its disposal.
Stepping up surveillance of imports
In June 2025, the Commission announced the launch of an import surveillance task force to monitor harmful trade diversion, where goods might be redirected to the EU due to high tariffs imposed elsewhere. The task force tracks imports and identifies potentially damaging imports. In conjunction with industry, the Commission uses the data to identify risks and, if necessary, take appropriate action.
The Commission also developed a new exporter reporting and consignment tracking tool in 2025. It became effective at the start of 2026 to monitor a price undertaking concerning imports of battery electric vehicles.
Putting enforcement at the forefront of EU trade defence
Ensuring that existing trade defence measures achieve their objectives is vitally important for the Commission as it fights increasingly complex attempts to circumvent them. In this regard, monitoring of import levels and market developments – together with industry – continued throughout 2025.
On 25 March 2025, the Commission adjusted the functioning of the EU’s steel safeguard to ensure the continued effectiveness of the measure.
On 18 November 2025, the Commission imposed definitive safeguard measures on certain ferro-alloys to protect the Union industry from a harmful increase of imports.
The Commission services also continued to assist EU exporters subject to trade defence investigations by third countries, such as the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations by China on imports of brandy, pork and dairy.
