Germany’s steel association Wirtschaftsvereinigung (WV) Stahl and workers union IG Metall have criticised the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) proposal presented by the European Commission last week for failing to implement a general “Buy European” rule.
In contrast to other materials, namely aluminium and concrete, the Commission’s 25%-quota for carbon-reduced materials in public tenders stops short of seeking mandatory European origin for steel as well.
“War and protectionist moves have made Europe’s dependency in strategic regards painfully visible,” says managing director of WV Stahl, Kerstin-Maria Rippel, and IG Metall’s deputy chairman Jurgen Kerner. “Resilience of Europe’s economy is becoming a necessity for security,” they are reported as saying in a guest article in Welt.
The failure of linking the green steel quota to domestic sourcing “means a surrendering of Europe as a producer region,” which ultimately is “a political error of historic dimensions,” they conclude. They clarify that their claim “is not about raising walls, it’s about self-assertion.”
Pointing at the policies of the USA and India, they note that “only a naïve continent refrains voluntarily from linking demand to domestic production, to support its own strength.”
The country’s largest steelmaker, thyssenkrupp Steel, finds that the IAA helps imports more than it helps domestic steel. In its current draft, the proposal greenlights procurement from any overseas region. “That way, we support investment outside of Europe, rather than within,” the company’s ceo, Ilse Jaroni, says in a statement sent to Kallanish.
Meanwhile, the economy minister of state Saarland, Jürgen Brake, has called on the federal government to push the Commission for amendments of the proposal. Federal economy minister Katharina Reiche, too, has expressed criticism of the IAA, but mainly about the bureaucracy it causes. “This is the 50th proposal on domestic content, that comes on top of 49 others, which nobody can oversee anymore,” she is quoted as saying in Welt. She is reserved about requirement of buying European over concerns that it could drive away trusted international trade partners.
The additional bureaucracy that could come with European measures such as the IAA is also of concern to some steel using industries like the German mechanical engineering industry. Its association VDMA also questions local content requirements and warns that these could be an additional burden for its mostly medium-sized machinery builders (see Kallanish 5 March).
