Fifth AEGIS Europe Report on the EU’s Trade Defence Instruments
Press Release: The EU must make full and effective use of its trade defence instruments
Brussels, 30 October 2026: AEGIS Europe has published its Fifth Report on the Functioning of the EU’s Trade Defence Instruments (TDI) (download the full report here), calling for urgent action to ensure that the EU makes full and effective use of its main tools against unfair trade practices.
European manufacturing is under extreme pressure from unfairly traded imports, state-controlled and export-driven economies and growing overcapacities. The European Commission has recognised the need for a more effective trade defence toolbox, but this must now be backed up with effective action. EU industries cannot afford to wait.
The European Commission’s 44th Annual Trade Defence Report shows that 32 new investigations were initiated in 2025, following the record 33 cases opened in 2024. By the end of 2025, 232 trade defence measures were in place, protecting around 637,000 EU manufacturing jobs.
In our report, we estimate that there may currently be as many as 70 fully documented applications for new investigations pending with DG TRADE. Preparing a new application already requires, on average, around six months of substantial work by the EU industry concerned, and can take up to two years for sectors composed of SMEs. Once an unfair trade practice has been identified and the resulting injury documented, an EU manufacturing sector may now have to wait three years or more before obtaining effective relief.
DG TRADE makes considerable efforts under increasingly difficult circumstances, but its capacity is constrained by systemic understaffing. AEGIS Europe therefore calls on the Commission to immediately reinforce Directorate G of DG TRADE, including by reallocating at least 50 staff members to case-handler teams and the Complaints Office, in order to reduce the backlog and increase investigation capacity.
More resources alone will not be enough. The Commission must make greater and more flexible use of safeguards, which require fewer investigative resources, can be deployed more rapidly and are particularly suited to addressing disturbances across value chains. AEGIS Europe also calls for a stronger value-chain approach to anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations, preventing exporting producers from simply switching unfair practices upstream or downstream after measures are imposed.
The Commission must also take a firmer position against all forms of circumvention, including the displacement of production to third countries to avoid EU duties, and make greater use of ex-officio investigations where sufficient evidence of widespread distortions or circumvention already exists.
In the longer term, AEGIS Europe calls for the removal of the Lesser Duty Rule, which is not required by WTO-law, and for a new instrument to address non-market practices and policies, including overcapacities.
Better use of the trade defence toolbox is not protectionism. The EU can, and should, remain open to trade, so long as trade is fair. Anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures restore the level playing field; they are not designed to stop imports. Indeed, when the number of investigations is considered against the total value of imports, the EU remains one of the most restrained users of trade defence instruments among the main OECD WTO members.
The message is clear: the EU already has trade defence instruments at its disposal. It must provide the resources and political support necessary to use them rapidly and effectively before further European production capacity, investment and highly skilled jobs are lost.