Today, the European Parliament held an important debate ‘’Tackling the steel crisis: boosting competitive and sustainable European steel and maintaining quality jobs’’ with MEPs from steel regions across Europe calling for urgent action to keep the sector afloat and keep thousands of steel workers in work.
Steel is a strategic sector for europe and is essential to meet its green deal ambitions and its aim of achieving an open strategic autonomy. However, the European steel sector has been facing crisis after crisis, caused by growing global overcapacity and the dumping of cheap steel on the open EU market, record high energy prices which affect competitiveness and a huge drop in demand with steel workers bearing the brunt of the fallout.
In the high level debate, the European Commission acknowledged job losses in the European steel sector and the pressure on wages and working conditions, while insisting that decarbonisation does not equal deindustrialisation. IndustriAll Europe expects these issues to be included in the forthcoming EU Steel and Basic Metals Action Plan and calls on the European Commission to work with trade unions to ensure that the sector can be transformed while safeguarding jobs and ensuring good industrial jobs for all.
Judith Kirton-Darling, industriAll Europe’s General Secretary, said:
‘’For months we have been calling for urgent EU action to help to tackle the European steel crisis and safeguard thousands of jobs. Trade unions across Europe have been mobilising and finally the EU is taking the situation seriously. Today, we were pleased to hear from MEPs from across Europe raise the concerns of steel workers and call for urgent action to safeguard jobs and ensure decent jobs in the future for steel workers.’’
During the debate, there was cross-party support from MEPs for urgent action at EU level to end overcapacity and create a fair level playing field to ensure fair competition. Various MEPs raised trade union demands on support for the sector to decarbonise, with social conditionalities for public funding, and measures to ensure job protection and a just transition for any impacted workers. IndustriAll Europe was specifically mentioned in the debate, and MEPs were called to support our demands for a EU steel action plan which would ensure a sustainable future for the steel sector and quality industrial jobs in all steel regions.
Jude Kirton-Darling added:
‘’Today, MEPs shared the demand from steel workers across Europe. We need action now! There is no time to lose and we call for a strong and ambitious EU Steel and Basic Metals Action Plan within the first 100 days of the new European Commission. This must be done hand in hand with the social partners with steel workers at its centre. We will not sit back and let the steel industry die with thousands of steel workers out of work. Europe needs to act. Steel needs Europe and Europe needs steel!’’
European Parliament plenary debate
European Steel Action Day (2024)
EU steel action plan (2020 and 2021)
High-level steel debate (March 2024)