German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has invited steel industry executives, works council representatives and trade union leaders to a meeting in the chancellery in Berlin on Monday, in his latest bid to bolster the country’s ailing economy.
Making the announcement on X on Saturday, Scholz said the meeting would discuss specific measures to secure Germany’s steel industry, including reliable pricing for electrical power, stimulation of investment and preventing the dumping of steel on the German market.
Speaking to the newspapers of the Funke media group, Scholz said: “Steel will be part of our industry for centuries to come, and the aim now is to secure steel production in Germany over the long term.”
The chancellor added that this had “geostrategic significance.”
Germany’s largest steel company, ThyssenKrupp, announced last month that it planned to cut 11,000 jobs at its steel unit over the next six years. After the restructuring, the company will employ just 16,000 workers, down from the current 27,000.
Workers representatives and the powerful IG Metall trade union, Germany’s largest, have warned of drawn-out resistance to the plans.
Scholz has also expressed concern at ThyssenKrupp’s plans, with particular reference to the steel needed by Germany’s key armaments industry.
Since the turning point marked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, “we have learnt that arms industry companies are too often dependent on suppliers from other countries, where we cannot always be sure that we will receive the material that we need at every point in time,” Scholz told the Neue Westfälische daily.
Germany could not allow itself to be blackmailed, he said. Following the invasion, Scholz announced a major shift in German defence policy.
