The reconfigured import barometer aims to enhance understanding of the scale and nature of sustained import increases that are impacting EU industry and the EU internal market.
On 2025 the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen set up an import surveillance task force focused on import surges caused by trade diversion in the wake of significantly increased tariff levels in certain major global markets.
The task force’s evidence-based approach provided valuable insight into trade flows and strengthened the EU’s ability to protect its open market from unfair import competition. It also served as an important basis for engagement with EU industry and an improved understanding of market dynamics.
Since spring 2025, the trade landscape has changed as tariffs have de-escalated, reducing the incentive to divert trade. At the same time, the main concern expressed by EU industry shifted from the effects of trade diversion to the rise of imports driven by industrial overcapacities, often fuelled by state-led policies and support measures, and their impact on EU industrial production.
To address these concerns, in June 2026 the Commission is revising the methodology previously used to monitor trade diversion and establishing an import barometer to focus on longer-term, sustained increases in imports at decreasing prices that reflect the systemic nature of such pressure.
The import barometer aims to improve collective understanding among EU stakeholders of the scale and nature of sustained import increases, and to inform decisions and actions to protect the EU's internal market, its industrial base and, ultimately, its economic security and prosperity.
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