Primary, Concentrated and Regulated Sectors: Steel

Abstract

Having been a precursor to the European Union (EU), via the 1952 European Coal and Steel Community Treaty, the steel industry has 50 years experience of significant inter-relations between national and supranational authorities, and the development of relevant representative structures. Steel is gradually becoming ‘normal’, which may be hard to believe when one considers what the United States steel lobby has done in precipitating a trade war with their section 201 actions, but it is true. Steel companies are consolidating across the world; state holdings have drastically reduced; the interventionist measures of the ECSC Treaty are behind us, having expired in 2002; and trade associations are reverting to their normal functions.