7 August 2025 – If you believe the German steel lobby, domestic steel mills are doing incredibly badly. But do the statistics stand up to fact-checking? Does the beleaguered EU Trade Commissioner urgently need good press? And a brief opinion piece on the dispute between the Commission and Germany over the EU-US trade deal.
German steel: Don’t trust any statistics you haven’t falsified yourself?
German steel mills never tire of emphasising that they are in poor economic shape. In particular, mills that produce using the traditional blast furnace route complain about high energy costs, expensive CO2 certificates and inadequate trade protection. These three points alone did not stand up to yesterday’s fact check.
Fact check on German steel production
Another point that does not stand up to fact checking is the regular statistical publications of the German Steel Association (WV Stahl) on German steel production. Basically, the published production data cannot be independently verified. They are only the figures of an economic lobby association with political interests.
Furthermore, the association does not provide any information on how many blast furnaces or other steel mill components are currently undergoing maintenance or overhaul in Germany. The best example is blast furnace 4 at Dillinger Hütte, which has an annual capacity of more than 2.3 million tonnes. If such a blast furnace is shut down for three months, this quickly results in a loss of more than 160,000 tonnes of pig iron or hot metal per month. However, the association is shamelessly exploiting this loss of production to proclaim the demise of the German steel industry in even louder tones.
Conversion rate from crude steel to hot-rolled steel products
Another point that does not fit in with WV Stahl’s statistics: the conversion rate from crude steel to hot-rolled steel products shifted significantly in June. While this had remained steady at 1.00 tonne of crude steel to 0.89 tonnes of hot-rolled steel over the last three months, it suddenly jumped to 1.00 to 0.93 tonnes in June. In contrast, this ratio was only 1.00 tonne of crude steel to 0.84 tonnes of hot-rolled steel in April.
Decline in German steel production was expected
This leads to the conclusion that steel production had already been optimised in April 2025 in order to compensate for the decline in June, partly due to the maintenance work mentioned above. A closer look at previous years could provide even more insight into the alleged crisis facing German steel mills.
In the end, the only conclusion that remains is: don’t trust any statistics that you haven’t falsified yourself. Especially when it comes to German steel production.
Does the beleaguered EU Trade Commissioner urgently need good press?
How can you tell when a politician is under too much public criticism? When the press starts writing flattering articles about them. A good example of this is EURACTIV, which is starting to praise the incumbent and, in our view, worst EU Trade Commissioner we have ever had, Maroš Šefčovič, and portray him in the most positive light possible. It would be mischievous to think of NGO programming here.
EU-US trade deal: It is clear that nothing is clear
Because if one thing is clear about the EU-US trade deal so far, it is that nothing is clear. Both sides remain divided over the actual details and the agreements that have allegedly been reached. Recent threats by US President Donald Trump to impose 35% tariffs on the EU if it fails to meet its investment commitments of USD 600 billion show how far apart the two sides still are.
According to EURACTIV, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico disagree on many issues and repeatedly clash politically – but they seem to agree on the Slovak-born Trade Commissioner and are determined to keep him on. With career bureaucrats who have served as EU Commissioners for 16 years, it is time to think about renewal – especially in such an important position as EU Trade Commissioner.
Brief opinion piece
We apologise in advance for a brief bout of arrogance. However, in light of the strong criticism from Brussels regarding Germany’s economic and foreign policy, we would like to briefly point out to the EU Commission and its president that they would do well not to interfere any further in this matter.
The fact that Germany, still the largest economy in the EU, is dissatisfied with the outcome of the EU-US trade deal should be a clear indication to the Commission that it has failed across the board. The simple principle still applies here: who pays the piper calls the tune.
And while we are certainly no fans of the German finance minister, it is still not appropriate to try to dictate to the EU’s strongest economy what it should or should not do. So shut up now!
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Disclaimer: Many things here represent our opinion. Others are information from the Internet. We can therefore never claim to be correct or complete. And never base a business decision solely on the news you receive from us.
