Europe’s Steel Industry Should Be Publicly Owned and Controlled
Europe’s steel firms are increasingly unprofitable, and rising energy prices are making things even worse. Public ownership is vital to ensure conversion to green production while maintaining jobs.
The US-Israeli war on Iran promises fresh risks to Europe’s energy-intensive steel firms. Public ownership is a way of avoiding mass layoffs and stabilizing the supply of steel to sectors like public transportation and housing. (Hesham Elsherif / Getty Images)
Europe’s steel sector is in crisis. The obvious culprit is the continent’s high energy prices, now further escalating in the wake of the Iran war. But the deeper problem lies elsewhere: the industry risks returning increasingly fewer profits to company bosses and shareholders. Amid their troubles, there’s an opportunity for the Left to make a strong case for public ownership of the steel sector and for a wider reform of European energy markets.
Today, with gas prices in Europe having already surged by 70 percent following the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran, the continent’s energy-intensive industry is once again on alert. The steel sector is no exception. This comes on top of pressure from cheap steel imports and global overcapacity, which, according to the industry, present an “existential threat to European steelmaking.”
But the EU’s crisis lies much deeper.
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