Mr President, while the projected increases in prices and the improvements in the demand for steel will help companies like British Steel in the UK in the short term, but in the medium and long term should the European economy contract, is it not likely that the problem will recur? Does the Commission not take that view? Will it therefore not envisage the possibility that there will be a need for far greater reductions in capacity?

I also ask the Commission: would it not be scandalous if the UK steel industry is forced to bear the burdens of any future capacity reduction? British steel workers and producers have faced and suffered painful restructuring and redundancies already. Subsidies are surely likely to re-emerge as a serious problem when the steel market falls again and there will be further pressure to support loss-makers. Would the Commissioner not agree that bearing in mind the massive cutbacks that occurred in the 1970s and the 1980s it would be completely unacceptable to expect any further capacity reductions in the future in the UK?