17 July 2026 – The old spectre of a state-orchestrated concentration of the steel industry is back. Under changing names such as “Ruhrstahl AG” or “Deutsche Stahl AG,” the same idea has been pulled out of the political mothballs for decades: merge major steel producers, concentrate market power, and cover up structural problems with even more centralization. There is nothing new about it. Yet the plan has failed every single time.
Deutsche Stahl AG: When the Dead Refuse to Stay Dead
The monopolistic spectre is back on the media stage. There is nothing new about it. The idea of bringing several major steel producers together under the umbrella of a “Ruhrstahl AG” or a “Deutsche Stahl AG” originated in the social democratic policy factory and has been pushed through the political arena at regular intervals for decades. And rejected just as regularly.
Competition Law as a Reality Check for a “Deutsche Stahl AG”
A merger between thyssenkrupp Steel Europe and Salzgitter AG, as currently being circulated in the media once again, would probably already be all but impossible under competition law. Anyone who doubts that should remember the failed attempt to marry TKSE to Tata.
But the truly interesting material is not found in the current merger rumours. It is found in old parliamentary records. Thirty and forty years ago, they already identified with precision what remains unresolved to this day: the enormous overcapacity of the European steel industry.
1993: When Competition Was Still an Argument
An FDP member of parliament stated at the time what would probably be regarded today as an outrageous piece of market radicalism:
“What we now need, ladies and gentlemen, is a German steel industry that is competitive on the world market in the long term. The industry still has every opportunity to achieve that. It must face the new market conditions and must not remain trapped in self-pity.”
“Primary responsibility for the crisis lies with the steel companies, and therefore also with the trade unions, at the local level. My parliamentary group will not support shifting responsibility from companies and collective bargaining partners to the state.”
“A permanent sector-specific drip feed from Bonn for the steel industry is inconceivable for my parliamentary group, and a Deutsche Stahl AG even more so.”
A CDU member placed his finger on Brussels’ sore spot in the same debate:
“How am I supposed to explain to the steelworkers in Rheinhausen, as well as to their colleagues at other sites, that Brussels approved billions in subsidies in recent years, while at the same time resisting with almost missionary zeal every attempt to shut down, at least temporarily, the overcapacity created by those subsidies?”
Source: Plenary Record 12/146
1981: The Diagnosis Had Long Been on the Table
“The undisputed cause is the substantial overcapacity in the European steel industry, which is being artificially maintained through massive subsidies that are unlawful and in breach of the treaties in almost all neighbouring countries.”
And further, with an image that has lost none of its relevance:
“But it cannot seriously be in the interest of the competitiveness of the European steel industry if, at the end of a ruinous subsidy race, which bears about as much resemblance to fair competition as a public brawl does to an orderly boxing tournament, the only steel companies left standing are those in which Asterix and Obelix were already making steel.”
Source: Plenary Record 09/52
2017: When Even the Greens Could Still Do the Math
A member of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen dismantled the industry’s complaints about energy prices with remarkable sobriety:
“The steel industry received free emissions certificates worth EUR 5.3 billion and aid in the tens of millions in the form of electricity price compensation. Yes, the steel industry is under pressure, including because of overcapacity, but it is not under pressure because of energy prices.”
“That is why my clear message to the steel industry is this: do not come to us claiming that energy costs are too high. That is simply not true.”
Today: Same Cause, New Label
The narrative has changed. The cause has not.
Today, CDU members such as Christian Ehler argue for even more subsidies and even more market protection. Despite repeated offers of talks and the disclosure of the relevant facts, FDP Member of the European Parliament Svenja Hahn preferred consultations with large corporations and ultimately voted in favour of their permanent subsidization.
Mohammed Chahim of the S&D Group, Parliament’s CBAM rapporteur, played a key role in the supposed simplification and in the expansion to downstream products. Nothing further needs to be added to Annalena Baerbock’s 2020 comments on the carbon border adjustment mechanism as an instrument of market protection.
Four decades, changing party constellations, one unchanged problem.
Anyone who knew in 1981 that subsidies preserve overcapacity, and who knew in 1993 that the state must not relieve companies of their responsibility, also knows it in 2026. They simply no longer want to say it.
Instead, the permanent drip feed is given a new label. Subsidies become transformation support, protectionism becomes resilience, and market failure suddenly becomes European sovereignty.
There is still no attempt to put one’s own house in order. Instead, competitors, importers, processors, taxpayers, and consumers are expected to pay the bill for a structural policy that has clung to the same mistakes for forty years.
Deutsche Stahl AG is therefore not a new idea. It is merely the latest attempt to keep an old problem alive through even more political control, even more market power, and even more of other people’s money.
A Look Across the Rhine
Anyone who refuses to finally remove the subsidy drip, who continues to prevent ideology-free rethinking and genuine economic restructuring, will not get a second economic miracle. They will get a second France.
France’s public debt has now reached around EUR 3.5 trillion, equivalent to approximately 115% of GDP. In absolute terms, this makes France the most heavily indebted country in the EU.
Subsidies are not economic policy. They are merely the bill you leave to your grandchildren.
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