ArcelorMittal will receive direct aid of around €450 million for the transformation of its facilities in Asturias. The European Commission gave its authorization last Friday for the Spanish Government to grant the steel giant the subsidy, which is part of the Perte (Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation) of industrial decarbonisation, which the Government approved on December 27 and endowed with €3,100 million of public funds.
The Council of Ministers is expected to approve a Royal Decree at its meeting tomorrow to implement the aid. With it, it is expected that ArcelorMittal can also relaunch activity at its plants in Spain, where it maintains Ertes (Temporary Employment Regulation Proceedings) that affect 8,550 workers due to the current situation in the steel market, with very low demand and many imports from outside the European Union.
ArcelorMittal signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Spanish Government in July 2021 to invest €1,000 million in decarbonisation technologies at its Gijón factory. Of the €1,000 million, estimated before the rise in inflation, the Mittal family firm aspired to obtain half, about €500 million, through public financing. In addition, the Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto, and the CEO of ArcelorMittal, Aditya Mittal, signed an agreement in May 2022 in Davos (Switzerland) to advance the decarbonisation plan of the company’s plants in Spain.
Then the possibility arose of also building a new electric furnace in the Avilés factory. ArcelorMittal has requested aid from Brussels for some €3,000 million for its plants in Spain, France, Germany and Belgium. Brussels has now given the green light to this aid of €450 million euros a year and a half after the company submitted the application.
