Closure of ThyssenKrupp's Galmed steel plant in Spain: unfair labour-market competition from Germany
28.6.2013
Question for written answer P-007750-13
to the Commission
Rule 117
Francisco Sosa Wagner (NI)
ThyssenKrupp AG is a German steel conglomerate. Of all its businesses, many of which are based in the Iberian Peninsula, only ThyssenKrupp’s Galmed plant in Sagunto, Spain manufactures steel coils galvanised with zinc aluminium. The plant, which employs 165 people directly and another 500 indirectly, is a major supplier of steel coils to the automotive industry and, as such, has always been profitable.
On 8 February 2013, the management of ThyssenKrupp announced the closure of the Galmed plant, not because it was undergoing economic, financial or production-related difficulties, but because it wished to transfer production of this type of coils to two plants in Germany.
ThyssenKrupp AG is not the first German company to transfer production facilities in this way: Bosch and Siemens have similarly taken advantage of the favourable labour conditions offered by the German Government. Germany has no minimum wage applicable to all sectors in its economy, and the hiring of staff on ‘mini-job’ contracts — with a maximum wage of EUR 450 per week — has become commonplace.
The European Commission has called on Germany to encourage its companies to give such staff more stable contracts on better wages, by applying productivity incentives, and has advocated closer labour-law harmonisation. Germany is guilty of unfair labour practices in offering incentives for companies to move manufacturing there. By poaching manufacturing jobs from other Member States — as it has done with Galmed in Sagunto — it is further impoverishing them and aggravating their already soaring rates of unemployment.
Is Germany indeed guilty of unfair labour-market competition in maintaining a legal framework that the Commission wishes to amend?
Is there a link between the closure of ThyssenKrupp’s Galmed plant in Sagunto, the transfer of production to Germany and the fact that such plants in Germany are subject to more favourable labour laws?
OJ C 56 E, 27/02/2014