EU member states imported €1,150.3 million of electricity from Serbia in 2025, while three flat-steel product families together accounted for more than €500 million, 2025 trade statistics show. The flows provide screening points for companies preparing for the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), but broad customs codes do not establish which goods fall under the law or what emissions charges apply.
Electricity trade, classified as HS271600 and EU CN 2716 00 00, amounted to 9.84 terawatt-hours. Its reported value was $1.30 billion, equivalent to about €1.15 billion and listed as €1,150.3 million. CBAM measures electricity in megawatt-hours, so its trade value cannot be compared directly with steel or aluminium tonnage to assess embedded emissions.
Steel and aluminium flows need product-level checks
EU imports of hot-rolled non-alloy flat steel from Serbia under HS7208 were valued at $384.23 million, equivalent to about €340 million using the annual 2025 euro-dollar average. Coated or plated flat steel under HS7210 was worth approximately €109.3 million, while cold-rolled flat steel under HS7209 was worth approximately €55.4 million. Together, these families represented more than €500 million of reported imports.
The scale of those flows makes shipment-level carbon-data work a priority for companies trading flat steel. Aluminium imports also cover a range of processed and fabricated products, rather than only unwrought metal. EU imports included approximately €148.7 million of plate, sheet and strip under HS7606, and €78.6 million of containers and similar packaging under HS7612.
Other aluminium articles under HS7616 were worth about €62 million in 2025. Imports also included roughly €44 million of structures under HS7610 and approximately €41.4 million of bars and profiles under HS7604. These product families point to a processing and fabrication trade, but the broad values do not establish CBAM coverage.
Coverage depends on the specific eight-digit EU Combined Nomenclature description in Annex I, not on a broad HS heading. Some fabricated products in Chapter 73 or Chapter 76 are covered even though they may appear less like primary materials. By contrast, Serbia-to-EU ferrous scrap trade under HS7204 was around €22 million in 2025, and aluminium scrap under HS7602 was approximately €35 million; both are outside the initial CBAM product list.
Importers need reconciled shipment and emissions records
A commercial data extract for CBAM work should include quantities, origin, producing installation, customs procedure, reporting importer and CN8 classification alongside value. Businesses operating through distributors face particular urgency in reconciling product classifications with emissions data. The importer needs to link a product’s footprint to the exact classification and quantity imported.
A Serbian steel producer may issue a plant-level report for a coil, but the EU importer needs a defensible allocation of those emissions to the relevant product classification and imported quantity. For downstream steel articles, precursor-material requirements and process boundaries add detail. A generic certificate describing a company’s average footprint is not sufficient by itself.
Importers cannot calculate their CBAM certificate obligation by multiplying a chapter’s total customs value by an emissions price. Charges depend on embedded emissions, applicable adjustments, carbon prices recognised as already paid in the country of origin and the phase-out of EU free allowances.
The immediate priority is a reconciled CN8 register, rather than another sector ranking. It should start with EU member-state import data where origin is Serbia, restrict 2025 flows to each legally applicable CN8 code and remove goods that are not covered. Until that extraction is completed, broad HS4-family figures remain screening proxies, not a complete audited CN8 CBAM import ledger.
Elevated by CBAM.Clarion Engineer