Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-25-Speech-2-491-000"
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"en.20111025.29.2-491-000"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, listening to you, I thought I was dreaming. You read out some general considerations to us regarding employment, adapting to change, and growth. Today, however, ArcelorMittal, the world’s leading steel-making group, is making massive profits. Moreover, thanks to certain tax breaks euphemistically called ‘notional interest’ – which should, incidentally, be prohibited at European level – it has ended up making unbelievable profits at a time when it is announcing the closure of the hot phase in Liège.
So, Commissioner, today, the question ultimately is not whether the Globalisation Adjustment Fund should be implemented, which I obviously want. What I am asking of you, Commissioner, and of the entire Commission, including, moreover, the Council Presidency, the Polish Presidency, is something else entirely: it is actually, as has been said, to prevent the deindustrialisation of Europe. Steel is not dead; steel has a future, in Liège and elsewhere. Its production processes are becoming more diverse. We need steel and high-tech products. That is true. These are not outdated industries. These products are, on the contrary, extremely high-tech products.
Due to European inertia, 50% of steel production has gone elsewhere: to China, India, South Korea, to the East, to Japan. This exodus has placed entire industries under threat. Not just ArcelorMittal in Liège, today, but an entire industry inexorably linked to its clients: car manufacture; construction; the green industrial revolution, namely wind turbines; trains; trams; all buildings requiring simple, environmentally sustainable steel production, steel production that is fully integrated into the industrial fabric. We will need all of these. To get there, Commissioner, we will need more energy than you have described.
First of all, the banks are being recapitalised. That is all well and good, but what is stopping us from recapitalising the European steel industry too? The domino effect we are seeing today – between the hot phase and the cold phase, between maritime and continental steel industries, between the steel industry and all of its subcontractors – is unacceptable.
This needs to be stopped, Commissioner, and to stop it, I suggest that you do four things: firstly, launch a public takeover of the plant. You did so for Dexia. Why not do so for the steel industry? I am asking you to do so. The opportunity is there to replace this private sector failure and actually establish a Europe-wide steel industry. To ensure that this happens, I also call on the Presidency to convene a European Council of Ministers for the Economy to lay the groundwork for a proper European steel industry plan. Let us take the initiative, then. Thirdly, I believe that we need investment, and to that end, I suggest you use the project bonds that Mr Maystadt presented to us in the Committee on Budgets and which are an extremely interesting and valuable tool. Lastly, I believe that a consolidated tax base is needed to prevent relocations and competition.
So, yes, I believe that for all workers, for engineers, for the regional and national elected representatives of Europe, there is a future for the steel industry. European industry has a future and a chance to build that future. This chance starts in Liège, and I am waiting for you there."@en1
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