The European Union (EU) last Saturday slapped anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese steel imports in an attempt to save thousands of jobs across the continent, but the leaders of the Europe's steel industry claim the measures are an insult to European manufacturers.

Angry European steelworkers have accused China of flooding the continent's market with steel sold below production costs, and have scoffed at the 13 percent tariffs the EU has imposed on Chinese imports as a remedial measure.

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UK Steel director Gareth Stace said the EU's response to the deluge of China's low cost steel products into the European market is an indication that the European Commission -- the EU's executive body -- is oblivious to the severity of the European steel sector's problem.

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"The Commission's decision to publish provisional duties at this very low level clearly shows that the scale of the crisis affecting the European steel sector has not fully registered with Brussels bureaucrats," Stace said. 

China's steel sector produces half the world's steel: more than the United States, the EU, Russia and Japan combined. 

There was a time when Chinese steel manufacturers could count on a huge domestic market for their products.  The country's construction boom hit its peak in the last decade, when the demand for steel products such as those used to reinforce concrete -- called rebar -- appeared endless. 

Now that the Chinese construction frenzy is over, however, European steel executives have asserted that China is unloading its oversupply on the continent's markets, and selling its steel beneath the cost of production. 

China's top steel makers have denied the accusation, claiming that overcapacity is a global issue that will require some time to resolve. 

"China does not encourage steel exports, and Chinese steel mills produce and sell their products in the fully competitive market," Zhu Guangsheng of the China Iron and Steel Association told Bloomberg in December.  "To simply attribute the difficulties in one country or region to Chinese enterprises is not responsible."

"Slap in the Face"

The competition in Europe has nevertheless been brutal, and a number of European steel manufacturers -- unable to match the price of Chinese steel in the local markets -- have been forced to cut production or shutter their enterprises altogether.  CNN reports that some 40,000 European steelworkers have lost their jobs in the past few years.

European Steel, an organization that represents regional steelmakers, has warned that lower priced Chinese steel is bound to swamp the European steel industry's export markets, as well.

"China should stop exploiting the export channel for its overproduction," European Steel director general Axel Eggert told CNN recently.  "If this continues, EU mills will lose further market share, not only in the EU but also in their key export markets."

The EU argues that the new tariffs on imported Chinese steel -- which are said to guarantee the continent's steel sector what the Commission deems a 'reasonable profit' of 1.65 percent -- are part of a wider plan to save the industry.   

But many European steelworkers and executives -- including UK Steel's Stace -- feel that the EU's corrective measures are puny, and far less persuasive than the measures taken by the United States.

"Basing the provisional duties on a so-called 'reasonable profit level' of 1.65 percent is a slap in the face for UK manufacturers of rebar, which has seen China taking more than 45 percent of the UK market from zero in as little as four years," Stace said.

TagsChina-EU relations, China steel industry, china economy slowdown