Ever-weakening consumption, imports growing unabated, prices as low as in the Covid era, and plunging profit margins, which have caused production to plummet to the lowest in at least a quarter of a century. The Italian and European steel industry is going through a new, very difficult period of crisis. And once again the problem is China, which has returned to pouring record quantities of low-cost steel onto international markets. Eurofer, which represents European producers, denounces a situation that has now become "explosive", to the point of "endangering the survival and energy transition". In the European Union, Eurofer recalls, crude steel production in 2023 fell to just 126 million tons, 25 million less than the average of the previous decade and as much as 56 million less than in 2008. Since the Great Global Recession to date, the sector has lost about 90,000 workers, a quarter of the workforce on the continent. "We started sounding the alarm many years ago, now the symptoms of deindustrialization have spread along the value chain", the association denounces, joining Mario Draghi's call for a shot in the arm on the competitiveness front and calling for much stronger action from Brussels to counter unfair competition from other countries: blanket duties similar to those adopted by the United States (which against China have tripled to 25% since September 27), guarantees of "watertight" implementation for the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) - the Co2 taxation on imported products, which will go into effect from 2026 - and urgent measures to reduce the cost of energy.