A decision in Brussels next week reaches Indian furnaces
The European Commission is expected to rule on aluminium scrap export restrictions this month, with the revised timeline pointing to the week of September 9 after the EU's August recess. Three instruments sit on the table: an export tariff, export licensing, or recycled content mandates. India is the single largest destination for EU aluminium scrap, so the choice made in Brussels lands on furnaces here.
What changes on the ground
India imported about 366,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap from the EU in 2025 and was the bloc's top buyer in the first quarter of 2026.
Market participants estimate a 25 to 30% export tariff would add €50 to €150 per tonne to scrap leaving the EU, assuming purchasers pass that cost into their bids.
India sources 80 to 85% of its aluminium scrap feedstock from overseas, and recycled metal makes up roughly 30% of national aluminium output, so the friction reaches the whole secondary chain.
The squeeze already started
Aluminium scrap imports into India fell about 16% year on year in Q1 2026, and some secondary facilities have run 20 to 40% below nameplate capacity on feedstock shortages.
The UAE announced its own aluminium scrap export ban in June, removing Gulf volume that supplied close to a fifth of India's needs.
India has formally asked the EU for relief, and officials have floated export quotas rather than a full restriction as a middle path.
The bigger trade picture
A second deadline sits behind this one. From May 2027, the EU's revised waste shipment regulation bars non-hazardous waste exports to non-OECD countries unless those destinations are approved by November 2026, and India has applied. Whichever instrument Brussels picks, scrap is being reclassified from a traded commodity into a strategic input, and several regions are reaching that conclusion at the same time.