Karl Koehler: Tata steel boss joins workers in protest against Chinese imports

The protest comes as the EU is considering whether to grant China market economy status

British steelworkers demonstrate against the import of cheap Chinese products in Brussels on Monday (AP)

Hundreds of British workers from Tata Steel joined thousands of their European counterparts in Brussels to protest against opening up EU markets to China, a move they claim would destroy their ailing industry.

With European steel making in steady decline, unions and executives said only stronger trade barriers could help them stay in the game against a flood of cheap Chinese imports. Karl Koehler, Tata Steel’s European head, joined 5,000 demonstrators before meeting Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission.

Mr Koehler accused Beijing of undercutting European steel makers and of undermining global efforts to cut carbon emissions by making steel with coal-fired power. “We export in the long term our jobs and we import our CO2,” he said. Last month Tata announced 1,050 job cuts in the UK; almost 4,000 British steel jobs were lost in October.

Roy Rickhuss, the head of Community, Britain’s main steel union, said that politicians had a responsibility to protect the industry: “We have to make governments in the UK and across Europe understand the human cost of not taking action.”

Dave Hulse, the GMB’s National Officer, complained that nothing was being done to save steel jobs. “The commission is now directly responsible for bringing more misery to the industry,” he said. “This toothless action will do nothing whatsoever to assist the UK steel industry.”

The protest comes as the EU is considering whether to grant China market economy status, a grade that would allow Beijing to trade with fewer restrictions. The steel industry claims the measure would put up to 3.5 million jobs at risk.

The commission already has 37 trade defence measures in place against steel imports, 16 of which are targeted at China. Last Friday it launched three investigations into imports of seamless pipes, heavy plates and hot-rolled flat steel from China, warning it would not allow “unfair competition” to threaten Europe’s industry.

Officials have warned, however, that they cannot bend the EU’s own trade and competition rules to help steel makers. Last month, the commission demanded the Belgian government claw back around €211m (£162m) in state handouts to local steel plants, and it also opened an inquiry into about €2bn in Italian government grants to Ilva, Europe’s third-largest steel works.

Jyrki Katainen, the commission’s vice-president, said many of the challenges were unique to Europe, including low demand, high energy costs and heavy reliance on imported raw materials: “We need to think collectively about what can be done.”

Some 85,000 jobs have been lost in Europe’s steel sector since 2008, more than 20 per cent of the workforce. The global steel glut has pushed the price of hot-rolled coil in northern Europe down from €600 per tonne last summer to €350 per tonne.