All high school students still learn it during history: the first European Union was created around steel and coal, with the European coal and steel community (CECA), established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, ratified at the time by “Europe of the Six” (France, West Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries). Three quarters of a century later, coal production has largely disappeared from European soil. Is it now that of steel?
The observation is relentless: since 2008, steel production in the European Union (EU) has dropped by 30 % to reach its lowest historic level, while nearly 100,000 jobs have disappeared in the steel industry, according to Worldsteel figures, the World Association of Steel producers. Some describe the sector in a state of survival, others, even more pessimistic, in agony or in the process of extinction. “In ten years, steel production in Europe has increased from 7 % of world production to 4 %”recalled, in March, Stéphane Séjourné, the executive vice-president of the European Commission and commissioner responsible for prosperity and industrial strategy.
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Source: Lemonde