Challenges and Opportunities for the Ukraineʼs Steel Sector to Integration into the EU Common Market

ANNOTATION.The article is devoted to the identification and critical assessment of existing and potential opportunities and challenges of integration into the European market of the Ukrainian metallurgical sector.The key advantages of the Ukrainian metallurgy are identified based on a set of criteria -value, rarity, impossibility of imitation, and organization.The potential of steel demand for Ukraine is estimated based on apparent consumption (million tons), steel consumption per 1 US dollar of GDP, and per capita consumption.Significant future needs of the countrys economy for metallurgical products are stated.The autho r characterizes the existing and possible consequences of the loss of capacities of the metallurgical complex of Ukraine both in terms of quantitative parameters (production and exports) and qualitative ones -loss of production of unique products such as large shaped profiles, mainline railway rails, thick flat products for welded structures, etc.It is emphasized that for the EU countries, the integration processes in the metallurgy, launched by the 1951 Treaty of Paris establishing the European Coal and Steel Organization (ECSO), have historically been the primary sources of European integration, and later became the focus of attention when new countries joined, especially in the context of declining demand for steel in the EU.The autho r substantiates the need for coordinated integration of the Ukrainian metallurgy into the European market, given the supply of high-quality domestic products, the possibility of integration into European supply chains, and the creation of efficient manufacturing clusters following the example of Central and Eastern European countries, and, on the other hand, the satisfaction of the economic interests of the EU countries related to the development of metallurgy in Ukraine.The author systematizes and specifies the main current challenges for the Ukrainian metallurgy in the European market, characterizes their content and proposes specific countermeasures, in particular: the EUs application of unsustainable, especially short-term market access measures should preferably be transformed into long-term conditions with transition periods of 3-4 years after the end of the war; exemption of Ukrainian products from the CBAM mechanism for a certain period to enable enterprises to adapt to new environmental standards.