Back European steel, urges Eurofer

European steel makers have again urged EU policy makers to put the needs of the industry at the top of their agenda.

The call from the European Steel Association (Eurofer) and other high-level representatives of the sector came during an event, the ‘Clean Transition Dialogue on Steel’ with vice-presidents of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič and Margrethe Vestager.

The industry argued that the future of a strong and resilient EU can only be forged with low-carbon steel made in Europe. But speakers complained of ‘strong headwinds’ from high energy prices, unfair competition, global overcapacity and growing unilateral carbon costs. Eurofer said 2023 saw the lowest level of European crude steel production.

Eurofer director general Axel Eggert acknowledged that the EU and its member states had launched initiatives to incentivise and support the European industrial transition towards carbon neutrality. But he insisted the ‘the real bottlenecks have not been solved’.

‘These include the supply of internationally competitively priced low-carbon energy, the establishment of lead-markets for European green steel, and measures to address the massive, highly CO2-intensive excess capacity in the global steel market. We therefore urge policymakers to take swift action to preserve EU steel production during its decarbonisation process and the millions of high-quality jobs connected to it.’

‘European economic integration was built with steel, the backbone of Europe’s manufacturing value chains. We firmly believe that also the future of Europe and its cleantech sector can only be forged with European green steel.’

Eurofer said the EU Dialogue was the first significant initiative in this direction and hoped it would be continued and followed by concrete steps.

‘We have been advocating for a Green Deal on Steel since 2020. The time has now come to make it happen,’ Eggert added.