On June 28th 2012, EUROFER held its second European Steel Day at The Square Conference Centre in Brussels with 400 participants from the steel industry, steel suppliers and customers, representatives of the EU institutions and member states, journalists and other interested stakeholders. The event attracted more participants than last year and proved to be a real success.

The main conference in the morning included presentations and discussions on EU internal and external challenges such as the competitiveness of the EU steel industry, the financial and economic crisis, unfair trade praxis by third countries and the EU's resource, climate and energy policy. Speakers agreed on the enormous role European steelmakers play for the manufacturing value chains in Europe and European economy as a whole.

Mr Janez Potočnik EU Commissioner for the environment said that "The steel industry has rightly understood its key role in the transition to a green economy, confirming that resource efficiency does not mean de industrialization; in fact, quite the opposite. And metals will also play a crucial role in the transition to a low carbon economy, since renewable energy production requires a variety of metals to build the very windmills, batteries and solar panels what we need. We hope to see in the near future technological changes in the sector that will further decouple resource use from growing production especially in the light of the forecasted doubling of production by 2050."

Source - EUROFER

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