Posted on 24 Oct 2018
Germany’s '1st Steel Summit' on Monday in Saarbrücken, which assembled the heads of virtually all major German steelmakers and the respective states’ economy ministers, ended with a common position paper for a new alliance.
The partners in the ‘Allianz der Stahlländer’ (‘Alliance of Steel States’) are North Rhine Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Saarland, Brandenburg, Hamburg and Bremen. (Other steelmaking states, currently not represented, are Baden-Württemberg with Badische Stahlwerke and Bavaria with the mills of Aicher group).
The aim of the conference and the resulting alliance was to give the national steel industry a common voice in Berlin and Brussels, said Saarland's economy minister Anke Rehlinger, who co-organised the event. Hans Jürgen Kerkhoff of steel federation WV Stahl noted that “… we need a common understanding of politics and industry for challenges and solutions.”
The event was widely covered by German media, and was also highlighted in the primetime TV news. Süddeutsche Zeitung noted that the assembly of all state ministers and companies representing 85,000 steelworkers is “… the largest [… German] industry alliance imaginable”. The publication was also critical however, saying that the mills’ claims are too much about “… yesterday’s industry policy”, with calls for import protection, of stricter environmental requirements, and for reimbursement of energy costs.
An issue that was scarcely covered at the event was a shortage of transport resources for steel which has been much bemoaned by the sector over the last two years. This is experiencing a dramatic upturn recently caused by low waterway levels (see Kallanish 22 November). The issue was raised before the conference by recyclers federation BDSV. This is because waterborne transport costs for scrap in Germany have tripled in recent months and mills are not contributing their share towards increased costs, leaving the scrap sector to pay.
