Page 6 - Best of 2016 English

6 SALZGITTER INSIDE
„Restructuring goes hand-in-hand
with a focus on the future“
STIL talked to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann, Chairman of the Salzgitter AG Executive Board
STIL: It was announced that the year 2016 would be “the year that determines the fate of the Euro- pean steel industry.” is sounds dramatic. How would you describe the sector‘s situation now as we enter a new year?
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann: It will be up to later economic historians to decide if 2016 was the year that determined the fate of the European steel industry. We have always lived with extremely cyclic business trends in our industry. Neverthe- less, it was an unusually challenging year, because the di cult basic conditions that persisted within Europe were joined in autumn 2015 by the tsuna- mi of dumping imports from China. e result was ruinous price levels for strip steel and particularly plate production in the European market, which tremendously impacted all domestic manufactur- ers. In spite of an absolutely satisfactory demand, the nal gures were deep in the red. is is a
very rare combination! Our industry is absolutely competitive, including on a global level, and also indispensable for the value chains with around 330,000 jobs in the EU, and there was consequent- ly an enormous sense of urgency to protect our industry from damage from unfair competition that threatened its very existence.
STIL: How was the industry able to counter this? Prof. Fuhrmann: We mobilized all available funds, held talks at all political levels, and endeavored intensively to achieve tight solidarity among company managements, employee representatives and unions. We started the Steel Action Days in April 2016 with an impressive mass rally on the factory grounds in Salzgitter. e follow-up was in Brussels on November 9. is was the only way to give su cient emphasis to our legitimate demands. e EU reacted and granted our requests to start anti-dumping procedures. ese are meanwhile showing results, although the imposed anti-dump- ing duties turned out to be low compared to international levels. But this is not the time to relax. We must wait and see if China attempts to avoid or circumvent the duties. e fact that other protagonists, such as India, South Korea, Taiwan and Ukraine, have joined the plan is at least as rel- evant. Clari cation is very important for me in this context: We unconditionally face the international competition, but the same fair rules must apply
to everyone! Over the long run, no company can survive extreme distortions of competition such as we have seen in the past twelve months.
STIL: How can the EU protect itself from unfair trading practices in the future?
Prof. Fuhrmann: Early in November, the EU Commission presented a proposal in order to guarantee e ective trade protection in the future with respect to China, as well as with respect to other countries with non-market-based structures. is proposal contains new methods to calculate the dumping level. At this time, it is not possible to predict if, when and in which form the EU member States and the EU Parliament will be able to agree on this proposal. In principle, however, it should already be seen as very positive that the EU Commission has adopted this strategy. ere also appear to be changes brewing in the moderniza- tion of the trade defense instruments, which have been stagnating for years.
STIL: In recent years, you invested a great deal of time in communication with politicians in Berlin and Brussels in order to explain Salzgitter AG‘s po- sition on political topics. Are you satis ed with the decisions that have been made in the meantime? Prof. Fuhrmann: ere can be no doubt that
the intensive dialog with politicians is absolutely necessary, even if I clearly have to spend more time on the subject than I would like. Without this communication, the damages would probably be even greater! For example, the German steel industry‘s existing gas power plants and their in- dependent electricity generation remain exempted from Germany’s Renewable Energy Law (EEG) apportionment. A result that by no means just fell into our lap!
“We only do what’s good for our company.”
Nevertheless, the German steel industry will have to pay an amount in the high double-digit millions for the EEG apportionment in 2017, and we at Salzgitter AG are not excluded from this! ere is currently no end in sight to the rise in these extra costs, which the competition outside Germany does not have to pay in this form. is disparity already starts in Europe!
Under the terms of the increased stringency
of the EU Emission Trading System planned to start in 2021, the steel industry would be missing almost 40% of the CO2 certi cates because despite