Paris was worried this Friday about the inaction of the European Commission to defend the steel and chemical industries of the old continent, which are going through an “existential crisis” and requires, according to the government, a reaction “comparable to the subprime crisis for the financial industry.”
French industry minister Marc Ferracci will gather Monday by videoconference, his counterparts from several European countries, members of the young “heavy industry alliance,” the Ministry said Friday, based in Bercy in Paris. You want to “press” Brussels, which must announce a support plan for chemistry in the week. Bercy fears that it is just a “catalog of reflections that will be launched”, while the sector needs “immediate measures”, according to the same source.
“The chemical industry is experiencing an existential crisis comparable to what could be the subprime crisis for the financial industry. The day of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, we did not make an action plan in saying that we were giving ourselves a year to adopt correction measures, we took the immediate measures: we need the same reactivity for the industry that the industry that we had to save the banks” and the industry on Friday.
Billions of investments in suspense
France wants in particular the implementation of state aid for the modernization of the chemical industry in Europe. Ditto For Steel, Paris criticizes the absence of any realization of the protection measures announced by the commission in March, while the country fears the future of investments in the world number two arcelormittal in hexagonal territory, and more generally due to the maintenance of steel manufacturing in Europe.
European steel manufacturers have highlighted the billions of investments that had planned to decarbonize their steel production: they have faced since 2022 at an energy price too high and a wall of international competition at low prices, due in particular to the “systematic overcapacity of the Chinese linked to excessive investment and regulated savings allocation in China.”
The European plan should predict a limitation of detailed steel imports in Europe, but Bercy is concerned about any lack of realization of this intention. “Five high stoves have closed in Europe since the beginning of the year and as many vapo crackers, the basic element of chemistry,” Bercy said.
Source: BFM TV
