The European Commission, which is recognizing the changing dynamics of the European metals industry, is seeking comments from metals-related companies and groups to help craft future policy options in the fields of waste, energy, trade and research.
The decision to solicit input from the industry follows an analysis by the European Commission of the metals sector in terms of changes and trends. The EC is proposing policy actions to allow the EU metals industry to adapt to the new context of globalization.
Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen, responsible for enterprise and industry policies, said: "The EU metals industry plays an important role in itself and for other manufacturing industries. We need to improve its access to raw materials in a context of fair international competition and to secure and affordable energy"
The Commission analysis shows that raw materials and energy are the most important competitiveness factors for the EU’s metals industry. Depending on the sub-sector, energy and raw material costs represent roughly between 50-90 pecent of the total costs of refined metals production.
The new competitive challenges and the structural changes are evident: With the exception of copper (Chile) and nickel (Russia). China has become the biggest producer of metals and a major competitor of the EU on the metals’ raw materials world market. As regards consumption of metals, the EU was still in the lead for aluminum, copper, lead and nickel in 2004. However, China is catching up and is already the biggest consumer of steel and zinc.
Among others, in its consultation the Commission seek the views of stakeholders on the following:
* How to support the development of design standards to enhance metals recycling?
* How technical guidance related to alloys should be best prepared under the new REACH program?
* How a rapid and full implementation of the energy markets liberalization can impact on the competitiveness of the sector ?
* How to ensure fair competition world-wide in both production and trade of metals?
The public consultation can be found here: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/steel/index_en.htm
For more information, please see the Commission Staff Working paper at the following: <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/steel/index_en.htm>, or <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/steel/comm_sec_2006_1069_1_en_document_travail.pdf>.