As you know, our steel and metals industry is facing a serious crisis, between an explosion in electricity prices and global overcapacity arriving on our market. Trade tensions have not helped matters.
We Europeans had two possible choices:
Either accept that Europe is no longer competitive in steel, and gradually lose our production capacity and become dependent.
Or preserve an industry we need for construction, automobiles and defense.
The choice was clear. Europe must save its steel.
We owe it to our history. Europe began with steel.
We owe it to steel and metal workers.
We owe it to our entire economy.
This plan was drawn up with producers, unions and NGOs.
This plan meets all our competitiveness criteria
The cost of energy
The offer
The request
Today, we are giving a strong signal to investors and workers alike. We are providing predictability and a competitive framework for European production.
I’m going to start with what’s most eagerly awaited: our tools for protecting European steel. In the space of a few years, global overcapacity – particularly from Asia – has hit our mills’ order books hard. With energy prices falling, this is priority number one: we need to protect our steel mills from unfair foreign competition – wherever it may come from.
Europe must be a global steel player, not a playground.
As you know, we have a safeguard clause that already protects our market – but it’s not enough.
Immediate action: on April 1,we will reinforce the current safeguard clause. We’re aiming for a drop of up to 15% in imports.
Medium-term actions: the replacement of the safeguard clause, which expires in 2026, will be presented in the third half of 2025. And it will be more effective than the current one
Long-term actions: we will launch investigations into aluminum on the European market, with a view to introducing a safeguard clause similar to that for steel.
Secondly, we will be reforming the Border Carbon Adjustment Mechanism (BCAM) by the end of the year. This was a key request from the industry. We have accelerated the timetable and increased our ambition for reform.
By the end of the year, we will be presenting measures to reinforce CBAM’s action. These will operate in three directions: exports, anti-circumvention measures, and the extension of the products concerned
Our producers cannot be the most virtuous and the most penalized on the international market.
Finally, well also be looking at modifying the rules of origin to prevent foreign steel from undergoing a simple minor transformation in Europe, and then being sold as a European product.
The objective is clear: our competitors must no longer exploit the shortcomings of our regulatory framework.
Next, we need to act on supply and demand.
On the demand side – this is the business plan for steel made in Europe. To increase demand for European clean steel, we will introduce incentives, and a minimum of clean, European-made steel in our public procurement.
We are also studying the possibility of imposing the use of recycled steel in certain products. This should limit exports of our scrap steel. This is a major issue, because recycling our own steel costs less in energy and makes us more self-sufficient. Scrap must stay in Europe!
Finally, we are going to secure our supplies of essential raw materials, with dozens of critical raw materials projects that I will be presenting next Tuesday.
Finally, the steel industry of tomorrow will be
We have therefore made several concrete commitments:
Guarantee competitive electricity prices, in particular through long-term PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements).
Relax state aid rules to finance the ecological transition of steel mills.
Invest massively in hydrogen: a new delegated act will be presented to support low-carbon hydrogen, particularly in conjunction with nuclear power.
Develop research and innovation with 150 million euros in 2026 and 2027 dedicated to decarbonization technologies.
Above all, we are going to create a European Decarbonization Bank to raise the necessary funds and support this transition.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you’ve understood. Europe continues to change its mindset and will protect its strategic and vital interests. Steel and metals are among them.
It’s essential for our industry and jobs.
