Steel

For more than twenty years the European steel industry has been in a state of crisis. Over this period, the European Community has adopted a series of policies designed to ameliorate the situation. Despite this however, the steel industries in all member states still suffer from excess productive capacity, the very problem that initially defined the ‘manifest crisis’ and Community-wide measures in the first place. In the design and implementation of these policies, the member states ceded a considerable amount of decision-making authority to supranational institutions. However, narrower national interests have informed, if not dominated, the content, procedures and outcomes of measures adopted at the European level.