EU leaders have pledged "full and speedier" measures to halt the tide of cheap Chinese imports that are blamed for putting Britain's steel industry on a life support machine, according to The Guardian.
Leading European steelmakers are demanding immediate action to save an industry that has shed 85,000 jobs across the continent since 2008. UK steel companies have announced 5,000 job cuts in a matter of weeks, blaming Chinese imports, high energy costs and business rates, as well as the strong pound.
The UK government's handling of the crisis has been fiercely criticised. Business secretary Sajid Javid attended a crunch EU meeting yesterday, but the outcome of the summit has disappointed the unions.
Roy Rickhuss, the general secretary of Community, the steelworkers' union, said: "Council ministers and the (European) Commission have clearly failed to grasp the urgency of the current situation. Steelworkers whose jobs are at risk and who are seeing the impact of the dumping of cheap steel will take very little comfort from the conclusions of today's meeting."
Gareth Stace, the director of the industry body UK Steel, told the BBC: "The US and other countries have already moved to prevent cheap Chinese imports distorting their markets and now the EU must do the same and do so quickly."
Speaking after the meeting, Luxembourg's economy minister, Etienne Schneider, who chaired the talks, promised to "deliver the right conditions" to ease a "huge crisis" for Europe's steelmakers. He said EU leaders would try to make trade defence measures "full and speedier".
Steel imports to the UK from China have more than doubled since 2013 to 616,808 tonnes, with three months of the year still to go, according to data from the International Steel Statistics Bureau.
Source: http://www.theweek.co.uk/