19 March 2025

The State of European Steel Transition

The report highlights that the European steel industry is at a crossroads but that “there is a clear pathway to green steel” and this year is critical for advancing policies to drive the EU steel industry’s transition.

Europe is currently a front-runner in near-zero emission steel innovation, but it faces intensifying competition from China and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. “By investing in green steel technologies today, the EU will secure jobs and create resilience throughout the industrial value chain, as well as maintaining its early leadership in developing hydrogen-based direct reduced iron (DRI) and electric arc furnace (EAF) scrap-based steelmaking”, reads an extract from the report.

This publication coincides with the release of the Commission’s Steel and Metals Action Plan (SMAP), itself designed to ensure that “clean steel production is commercially viable” but which was drafted without input from green or environmental NGOs, leaving the process vulnerable to the unbalanced influence of pro-fossil industry.

This research provides eight key policy recommendations designed to clean up Europe’s steel sector, which accounts for five percent of the EU’s total carbon emissions. (These figures refer to the 2023 emissions, and come from the Sandbag report released in October 2024. Original figures come from IEA. Iron and Steel Technology Roadmap.)

Top of the list is to end permitting for or investment in new-build or existing coal-fired blast furnaces. The European Commission must also insist on “timely, ambitious and transparent” transformation plans for existing facilities, while every effort must be made to ensure the new wave of hydrogen-based green steel projects remains on track.