BRUSSELS, Dec 1: The European Commission said on Monday it had yet to be notified by the United States that Washington was lifting its controversial steel import tariffs, deemed illegal by the World Trade Organization.

With a deadline looming this month on retaliatory measures threatened by the European Union, Japan and China, the EU’s executive body said no official word had been heard on a reported US decision to announce the lifting of the controversial tariffs this week.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t got any confirmation on the lifting of the safeguards,” said Arancha Gonzalez, spokeswoman for European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.

Gonzalez noted that the WTO had ruled the three-year US tariffs were illegal on November 10 and that the trade body was to formally adopt the report on December 10.

If the administration of US President George W. Bush does not comply with the WTO ruling, the EU has threatened to impose $2.2 billion worth of sanctions on US imports on December 15.

“We hope that the president of the United States will make the right decisions between now and December 10, mostly because we believe the safeguard measures have already had the intended effect of pushing the US industry to restructure or to consolidate which is at the end of the day what will resolve the problems of the US steel industry,” she said.

The Washington Post, quoting Bush aides, reported on Monday that the president had decided to rescind the tariffs to avoid retaliatory measures.

Bush aides said the decision was “all but set in stone” and likely would be announced this week, the report said.

The aides called the decision one of the diciest political calculations of Bush’s presidency thus far, as it is likely to produce a backlash in steel-producing states that will be closely contested in the 2004 elections.

But they said they could not run the risk that the EU would carry out its threat to slap billions of dollars in sanctions on sensitive US goods such as textiles, shoes, fruits and vegetables this month.

“Keeping the tariffs in place would cause more economic disruption and pain for the broader economy than repealing them would for the steel industry,” an unnamed source told the daily.

The EU had warned it would slap tariffs worth $2.2 billion on a range of US imports five days after the formal adoption of the WTO decision. Japan threatened similar retaliatory measures in November.

Washington instituted the three-year tariffs of up to 30 per cent on steel imports from Europe, Asia and South America in March 2002, to protect ailing US steel mills and their workers.—AFP