歐洲鋼鐵業的貿易防衛戰 European steelmakers point the finger at China
Where the steel industry is involved, especially in rich countries, shuttered plants, job losses and complaints about unfair competition are rarely far away.
但凡涉及鋼鐵行業，尤其是在富裕國家，工廠倒閉、工作崗位流失和對不公平競爭的抱怨幾乎從未遠去。
Having seen global steel prices halve over the past year, European steel-makers are ratcheting up their choruses of complaint. Yesterday they demanded blocks on cheap steel imports, particularly from China, and lower energy input prices.
過去一年，全球鋼鐵價格下跌了一半，歐洲鋼鐵製造商正一同加大抗議的聲音。昨日，它們要求阻止進口廉價的鋼鐵（尤其是來自中國的鋼鐵），並降低能源投入的價格。
The impact of steel plant closures can be devastating for local communities. The recent closure of the Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) plant at Redcar in north-east England was a severe blow to a town with few other job opportunities. But resorting to wide-scale protectionism is only likely to displace job losses elsewhere. And while there is certainly a case for the EU to revisit the cost of power to energy- intensive industries, it is not clear that would do much to mitigate the damage the steel industry is sustaining.
鋼鐵廠倒閉對當地社區的影響可能是毀滅性的。近來，泰國偉成發鋼鐵工業(SSI)在英格蘭東北部雷德卡(Redcar)的工廠倒閉，對這個幾乎沒有其他工作機會的小城造成了重創。但訴諸大規模貿易保護主義只有可能將失業轉至別處。儘管歐盟的確有理由重新考慮能源密集型產業的能源成本，但目前還不清楚這能否大大減輕鋼鐵行業正在遭受的損害。
Steel has long been a battleground for trade disputes. With high fixed costs of production, and exposed to large swings in demand from the economic cycle, the industry goes through repeated phases of overcapacity, glut and falling prices, with governments implored to intervene to keep production going and preserve jobs.
長期以來，鋼鐵一直是貿易爭端的戰場。鋼鐵行業固定生產成本高，經濟週期導致的需求大幅波動還容易對它造成衝擊，因此這個行業一次次重複經歷產能過剩、供過於求、價格下跌的階段，政府被懇求進行干預，以維持生產並保留工作機會。
European steelmakers have frequently had recourse to antidumping and antisubsidy tariffs to tackle low-cost products entering the EU market. A larger-scale use of such “trade defence” measures is likely to do more harm than good. Not only does it risk inflaming EU-China trade tensions more generally, but raising the price of steel in Europe will merely disadvantage other manufacturers.
歐洲鋼鐵製造商時常訴諸反傾銷和反補貼關稅，以應對進入歐盟市場的低成本產品。更大規模地使用這種“貿易防衛”措施，可能會弊大於利。這不僅有可能在更大範圍內激化歐盟和中國緊張的貿易關係，且擡高歐洲鋼鐵的價格只會對歐洲其他行業的製造商不利。
Steelmaking is of great importance to local communities, but it employs only about 1 per cent of the 30m total manufacturing workers in Europe. Since steel is a vital input to large parts of manufacturing, holding prices in the EU above the global level merely spreads international uncompetitiveness more widely through the sector. The future for European manufacturing is in high value-added production, such as Germany’s successful machine tools sector, not in churning out basic commodities in a fickle global market.
鋼鐵製造對當地社區十分重要，但這個行業僱傭的勞動者僅佔歐洲3000萬製造業工人的1%左右。由於鋼鐵對於更廣泛的製造業是一種重要原料，將歐洲鋼鐵價格維持在高於全球價格的水平，只會讓歐洲更多製造業行業在國際上失去競爭力。歐洲製造業的未來在於高附加值製造（比如德國成功的機牀業），而不在於在變化無常的全球市場中生產基礎大宗商品。
The industry, or at least parts of it, is on somewhat firmer ground when it complains about energy costs. Successive iterations of energy taxes and levies aimed at combating climate change have undoubtedly made industrial electricity more expensive. But that is often a bigger problem between different EU states than it is between the EU and the rest of the world.
這個行業（或者至少這個行業的一部分）在抱怨能源成本的時候理由更充分一些。爲對抗氣候變化而不斷增收的能源稅費無疑使工業用電更加昂貴。但這個問題往往在不同歐盟國家之間（而非歐盟和世界其他地區之間）更爲突出。
UK producers, for example, complain their electricity is more than 50 per cent more costly than for competitors in France or Germany. But the European Commission last year found that while electricity prices for EU companies as a whole were twice those in the US and 20 per cent higher than in China, the differential with the US disappeared once tax and levy exemptions for European energy-intensive industries were taken into account.
比如，英國鋼鐵製造商抱怨，它們的電力價格比法國或者德國競爭對手高50%以上。但歐盟委員會(European Commission)去年發現，儘管歐盟境內企業的整體電力價格是美國的兩倍，也比中國高出20%，但一旦算上歐洲能源密集型工業稅費的減免，歐盟和美國之間的差距就不復存在了。
Moreover, energy inputs are on average only about 5 per cent of total production costs for the EU iron and steel industry. Electricity prices relative to those elsewhere would have to change spectacularly to have a decisive effect.
此外，能源投入平均只佔歐盟鋼鐵產業總生產成本的約5%。只有用電價格相對於歐盟以外地區出現明顯變化，纔會有決定性效果。
