High-ranking European industry representatives, including representatives of the steel sector, have asked the EU Commission to strengthen the economy.
73 industry representatives from 20 sectors of industry with approximately 7.8 million employees throughout the EU suggested a 10-step programme to boost business activity to both the Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo and the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, within the “Antwerp Declaration for a European Industrial Deal”, as reported by MEPS International.
The call to action was made at a time when the managing directors of European producers of stainless steel Aperam and Outokumpu published their operating profits for the year 2023, calling the conditions for commerce in the region “highly suppressive” and “challenging”.
The director of the board of Aperam, Timoteo Di Maulo, spoke of the current economic state of Europe this month as a crisis. The turnover of the stainless steel and electric steel producer headquartered in Luxembourg has decreased from 5.5 billion euros to 4.2 billion euros in the previous year, and over the same period of time, deliveries dropped from 1.6 million to 1.55 million tonnes.
Sales by Outokumpu for the year 2023 were 1.34 million tonnes, which is 9% below the previous year’s figures. The company’s turnover dropped from 9.49 billion euros to 6.96 billion euros, and net losses were 111 million euros – after a profit of 1.09 billion euros the previous year. CEO Heikki Malinen said, the market had dropped to the lowest level during the third quarter of the previous year and had only slowly recovered since.
After Germany, according to MEPS, the United Kingdom has also entered recession, after the GDP dropped by 0.1% from July to September, and shrank by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. In the Antwerp Declaration, industry representatives demand action by the EU Commission to provide enough cheap carbon-neutral energy, to increase domestic mining and sustainable processing and recycling capacities for important raw materials, to simplify financial support by the government for industries causing high emissions and switching to environmentally friendly technologies, and to offer more support for EU projects.
Like the industry leaders in the Antwerp Declaration, other steel corporations are also hoping for more decisive measures to improve future conditions for commerce for the European steel producers. In February, in Germany an alliance of the 11 steel producing German states supported current negotiations between the EU and the USA concerning a global agreement on sustainable steel and aluminium (GASSA). Such an agreement is to tackle the problem of overcapacities and at the same time strengthen trade with low-carbon materials. In conjunction with the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), such a measure would help safeguard EU steel producers against cheap imports from overseas. This month's study by MEPS (see below) demonstrates that import of stainless steel into the EU has significantly decreased in the first quarter. Material from third countries could prove to be less of a threat to the sector than a weak economy.
Source: MEPS International
