Brussels, 12/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - Brussels will host a high level conference, organised by the European Commission on Monday 15 February, on energy-intensive industries (steel, glass, aluminium, cement, ceramics and chemicals). This follows up on the extraordinary Competitiveness Council of 9 November 2015 which was dedicated to the damaged steel sector.
The Commission says that this conference will enable specific opportunities to be identified for investment in research and innovation for these industries. The conference will also address issues linked to international trade (free trade and unfair trade) and the circular economy (reduction of costs for raw materials, energy and waste disposal).
Several EU member state economy and/or industry ministers - Henk Hamp (Netherlands), Emmanuel Macron (France), Anna Soubry (UK), Vazil Hudak (Slovakia) - are expected to attend the conference, as well as European Commission Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness Jyrki Katainen and European Commissioner for Industry Elzbieta Bienkowska.
Representatives from the industry sectors concerned will demonstrate in front of the European institution buildings ahead of the conference. These representatives fear that the EU is disarming in the face of Chinese dumping, and they fear a drastic social and economic impact by granting China market economy status.
Associations represented by Aegis (a flagship alliance bringing together nearly 30 industries) and the European associations for steel producers (Eurofer) and aluminium producers (European Aluminium) will lead this march to preserve European industry and its jobs, protesting for fair trade and against Chinese dumping and granting China market economy status.
“Workers and manufacturers will all be deeply affected if China is given a licence to dump unlimited cheap goods into Europe through market economy status”, Aegis states in a press release on Thursday 11 February, after the Commission's announcement to open a public consultation on this extremely sensitive issue of granting China market economy status.
“We are very concerned that the European Commission is downplaying the impact of market economy status, and taking a very narrow view by focusing only on industries where anti-dumping measures are currently in force”, Aegis adds.
While the Commission says that up to 211,000 jobs are at risk from granting China market economy status, Aegis says that the Economic Policy Institute's analysis shows that up to 3.5 million European jobs are threatened.
“Today we are talking about dumping of steel. In the future, China will be dumping products in all of Europe's leading industries from car parts to energy technology. With market economy status, all European industries will be defenceless”, Aegis states, also speaking out against the disastrous impact of environmental dumping due to the Chinese overcapacity in steel. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)