The European Commission has dealt a severe blow to campaigners demanding more intervention by the UK government to prop up ailing steel producers.
In the latest in a string of rulings targeting illegal "state aid", commissioners have demanded the Belgian government claw back around €211m (£162m) previously handed out to plants owned by the Swiss steel conglomerate Duferco. The money was provided between 2006 and 2011 by the regional government in Wallonia, but it failed to prevent the group mostly pulling out of the country.
The watchdog has also opened an investigation into around €2bn (£1.5bn) said to have been given by the Italian government to Ilva, Europe's third-largest steelworks. The Wall Street Journal says the investigation is focused on support for the renovation of the company's plant in Taranto, which came via loan guarantees and money recovered through criminal cases against former management.
Critics of the UK government have accused it of not doing enough to help embattled producers, which have shed around 6,000 jobs in the past year in the face of a huge influx of cheap steel from China and high costs at home. Brussels granted the UK the right to provide rebates of energy levies but some, including the opposition Labour Party, have said that is not enough.
"It is not too late now, again, to call on the Prime Minister even at this very late stage, this 12th hour, to step in," said Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn back in September, after the closure of the Redcar plant on Teesside. "Other governments like the Italian government have done the same. Why can't the British government? What is wrong with them?"
EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the measures were designed to prevent "a harmful subsidy race between member states" and that the proper way of dealing with Chinese imports was through anti-dumping laws. But so far, the hefty levies campaigners are demanding to stop imports undercutting local producers have not materialised.
Many steel imports from China and Russia are being registered, which is often a precursor to levies being imposed. Vestager said the EU has 30 anti-dumping measures in place, with ongoing investigations into six other steel products,The Guardian notes.
Source: The Week