Author Fast Webs<.>, <.>

* Dedicated action plan by spring 2025 to tackle challenges
* Ensure European steel industry’s competitiveness, sustainability
* Address unfair competition, boost clean production

The European Commission will set up a strategic dialogue on steel and develop a dedicated steel and metals action plan to be launched in spring 2025, it said Feb. 25.
The strategic dialogue was aimed at charting a decisive course for the future of the European steel industry, underscoring the EC’s commitment to the strategic sector, as well as recognizing its central role in innovation, growth, employment, and the EU’s broader strategic autonomy, the Commission said in a statement.
“Faced with unprecedented challenges — soaring energy costs, raw material access issues, unfair global competition, and new US tariffs — the steel industry requires targeted action. The strategic dialogue on steel aims to deliver a robust, actionable plan for the sector’s future,” the EC said.
The strategic dialogue was first announced by EC President Ursula von der Leyen earlier in February, with her due to chair a high-level meeting on March 4, which would be attended by key representatives from across the steel value chain, including steel manufacturers, raw material suppliers, offtakers, and representatives of social partners and civil society.
She said in the statement the steel industry was a key sector of the European single market and was important in the fight against climate change.
“The strategic dialogue will help develop a concrete action plan to tackle the unique challenges of this sector in the clean industrial transition. We want to ensure that the European steel industry is both competitive and sustainable in the long term,” von der Leyen said.
The EC announced that Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy Stephane Sejourne had been tasked with developing the action plan.
“Europe has a plan for its industry: we must produce more, we must produce clean, and we must produce European,” Sejourne said, adding that this started with Europe’s most strategic sectors of which steel was one.
“We must protect our steel sector from unfair foreign competition and boost our own production of clean European steel. This is not only good for the steel sector. It is good for a whole series of other sectors that depend on steel,” Sejourne said, adding that the action plan was a key component of the EU’s industrial competitiveness and its overall economic security.
The EC said the dialogue would build on the foundation laid by the recently published EU Competitiveness Compass and the forthcoming EU Clean Industrial Deal.
“Key discussion points will include how to enhance competitiveness and circularity, drive the clean transition, decarbonization, and electrification, ensuring fair trade relations and an international level playing field,” it said.
Throughout the dialogue process, the EC said it would inform and consult with the European Council and European Parliament, with wider consultations with other stakeholders across the industry also being conducted.
The European steel industry contributes around Eur80 billion ($84 billion) to the EU’s GDP, according to the EC.