A systemic change in the world order has created new challenges for European stainless steel companies and forced them to rethink the way they do business. The focus now is on defending profitability rather than sales or production growth, says Andrzej Michalski-Stepkowski, chairman of Poland’s Stowarzyszenie Stal Nierdzewna (Stainless Steel Association – SSN).
Europe has gone from producing 17% of the world’s crude steel stainless steel in 2014 to less than 10% in 2025, with Asia leading stainless output growth. However, Poland is one of the EU’s largest stainless consumers, representing 10% of the market with apparent demand of 490,000 tonnes in 2025.
While globalisation saw the movement of low-cost produciton to the East, innovation has since also moved in that direction, and Asia is now selling specialised products to the West, Michalski-Stepkowski noted at Thursday’s Stainless Steel Forum in Chorzow. The EU has meanwhile lost competitiveness amid high energy and labour costs, as well as heavy regulation.
Global overcapacity of various commodities has resulted in geopolitical unrest, the dissolution of alliances, break-up of supply chains, trade wars, and the resulting threat to EU industry.
AI is meanwhile revolutionising the way business is done. The US is investing heavily into data centres, which will require significant energy supply, some of it from nuclear plants, which presents a strong opportunity for stainless suppliers.
In response to these challenges, EU policymakers have become more pragmatic concerning once heavily punitive climate regulation. “Today, no EU politician in Brussels wants to admit that they once supported the Green Deal,” Michalski-Stepkowski asserted at the event attended by Kallanish. The policy was “ill-conceived”, he added.
EU policymakers acknowledged there was something wrong in 2024 and commissioned Mario Draghi to produce his now widely-lauded report, on the basis of which various EU policy initiatives have been established. These include the Clean Industrial Deal and Steel and Metals Action Plan.
“There was a period when I thought we [European industry] would become a museum and China would take over,” Michalski-Stepkowski noted. “Today, I am more optimistic because … I see things are happening.” Business will continue but in a different way, with strategies adapted to maximise margins using the resources at Europe’s disposal. The use of AI and cost optimisation will feature. Growth will return, but not based on capacities or sales, but on profit, he concluded.
