LIBERTY leading the charge for clean steel at the European Commission

LIBERTY has held a highly successful debate in Brussels on the “Future of the EU Steel Industry” with key EU decision makers from the European Commission, our national Governments’ representatives and the European Parliament. The event, which was attended by around 40 members of the European Parliament as well as senior members of the LIBERTY team, discussed the potential opportunities and challenges for the European steel industry in the current volatile economic and geopolitical context, as well as how different stakeholders can collaborate better to achieve lasting change and maintain competitiveness for what is a strategic industry for the European economy.

Sandip Biswas, Interim CEO LIBERTY Primary Steel, made a speech titled “The journey towards EU green steel; LIBERTY Steel’s ambitions, challenges, and opportunities for stakeholders’ cooperation” in which he outlined our CN30 ambitions and highlighted the GREENSTEEL transformation programmes at LIBERTY Częstochowa, LIBERTY Galati and LIBERTY Ostrava. Sandip was also very clear on the specific key enabling factors which are vital for the transition to green steel, to ensure that our communities and our national economies really are able to enjoy the truly green Europe of tomorrow.

“We are committed to Europe, we are committed to GREENSTEEL and we look forward to you offering the long-term support and a solid public-private partnership needed for us to become carbon neutral by 2030 and providing long term sustainable jobs for the communities and economies that depend on us.”

Sandip Biswas, Interim CEO LIBERTY Primary Steel

The event also saw speeches from some of the EU’s most senior officials: Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy, gave her thoughts on the EU’s future Energy policy framework; while Maive Rute, Deputy Director-General for the Commission’s DG GROW, outlined the Commission’s plans on the upcoming Green Deal Industrial Plan. The event was officially hosted by Romanian MEP Dan Nica, who spoke on the strategic importance of the steel industry for the future of the European economy, Polish MEP Marek Balt who spoke on the importance of considering scrap as critical raw material to achieving decarbonisation and Romanian MEP Cristian-Silviu Buşoi (a very welcome substitute for Czech MEP Tomas Zdechovsky, who was struck down with illness just before the event) who spoke on how RePower EU and R&D support can help incentivise decarbonisation in the steel industry.

The final formal speaker was Axel Eggert, the Director General of the European Steel Association (EUROFER) who shared his thoughts on the priorities of the European steel industry. There were also excellent interventions by MEP Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish Prime Minister and President of the European Parliament, and Elspeth Hathaway, Senior Policy Advisor at industriAll Europe.

We hope to run the event, which had some excellent feedback from the guests, again in the next future as it raised the profile of LIBERTY and the GREENSTEEL transformation programmes of our major European sites. It also highlighted the importance of collaboration between industry and policy makers to create the right policy framework and investment support to respond effectively to the wide range of issues, challenges and opportunities the European Steel industry faces today and into the net zero age.