European steel industry promised additional support measures

Stefan Sejourne, the European Commission’s candidate for Executive Vice President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, has promised additional measures to protect the steel sector to unlock investment in decarbonization. He was heard by four committees of the European Parliament, the institution said in a statement.

Answering questions from MEPs, he said that the steel industry could receive additional support from the European Investment Bank.

In his speech, Sejourne announced the upcoming Clean Industry Pact to lay the foundations for an industrial policy that is relevant to the present. He emphasized that the EU should simultaneously pursue decarbonization and reindustrialization.

The candidate called for focusing on strategic sectors with the greatest potential and socio-economic impact, helping to reduce energy prices, and developing leading markets for products such as electric cars and heat pumps.

Sejourne also pledged to reduce bureaucracy for companies and promised to introduce an SME passport to avoid the need to constantly confirm their legal status.

He emphasized that huge investments are needed to prevent the outflow of the most innovative companies from the EU. According to the European Parliament, to win the global investment battle, the European Commissioner-elect plans to create an EU Competitiveness Fund and use InvestEU to increase public funding and create synergies between public and private investment.

Sejourne, according to Politico, has taken a firm stance on the need to protect EU industry from excess Chinese production and unfair competition with products that do not meet EU standards.

As a reminder, the European Steel Association (EUROFER) and IndustriAll Europe, a trade union federation, have issued a joint statement on the urgency of the EU’s action plan for the steel industry. They insist that this plan should be weighty and published within the first 100 days of the new European Commission.

As GMK Center reported earlier, the crisis in the steel industry was discussed during the plenary debate in the European Parliament on October 23. In particular, they discussed the global overcapacity of steelmaking capacity, the role of Chinese exports, the imperfection of EU trade defense instruments, high energy prices and CBAM issues.