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UKIP Continues to press for release of Mittal
papers
The UK Independence Party has announced that it will continue to press
for the release of documentation from both the British government and the
European Commission, relating to the activities of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal.
[ClickPress, Wed Oct 26 2005] UKIP Leader Roger Knapman MEP
said he is 'most concerned' that documentation has not been provided by the
British government, following a Freedom of Information Act request to 10 Downing
Street, and voiced growing concern over the roles of EU Trade Commissioner Peter
Mandelson and EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy in past and
current deals involving Mr Mittal.
He suggested that the
involvement of two Commissioners makes it imperative that the EU should act to
release documentation rapidly to ensure that the deals were 'transparent and
above board', and made it clear that further delay would 'make it appear that Mr
Mandelson and Mr McCreevy had something to hide'.
Mr Knapman
also raised concerns that recent acquisitions by Mr Mittal 'appeared to have
been almost entirely financed by public money', and questioned whether the
European Commission was essentially financing competition to domestic steel
industries across the European Union.
He said that purchases by
Mr Mittal in Kazakhstan, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Serbia, Romania, South
Africa and Mexico were all at least partly financed by money provided by
taxpayers via the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) or the
International Finance Corporation, a division of the World Bank.
Meanwhile, the collapse of Mittal-owned Irish Steel in 2001,
left taxpayers in the Irish Republic with a $57million bill after the company
was folded just weeks after its agreement with the Irish government, which had
sold him the loss-making company for IRŁ1, ended. At the same time, the EBRD was
in the process of lending Mittal $70m to purchase state-owned Sidex of Romania,
following the intervention of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. At the time of
the collapse of Irish Steel, Mr McCreevy was the Irish finance minister.
Mr Knapman said that he would use a speech in Strasbourg on the
accession of Romania and Bulgaria to warn that their state steel industries,
both of which belong to Mittal Steel, would find themselves in a 'precarious
position' after accession, when they would have to try and compete on price with
the Balkan and Kazakh steel industries, which Mr Mittal also owned.
Notes to Editors:
For further information,
please contact
Roger Knapman MEP, 07890-010919
Mark Croucher,
UKIP Press Office, 07960-584161
Mr Knapman's speech is below:
"The choices facing Romania and Bulgaria today are simple. Will
they compete with the economies of Western Europe on the basis of skills, or
with Turkey on price?
A practical example would be the steel
industry. In Ireland, state-owned Irish Steel was sold to Europe's favourite
steel producer, Mittal Steel, current owner of the Romanian and Bulgarian steel
industries. The price was 1 Irish Punt. 5 years later, just weeks after Mittal
collapsed Irish Steel with debts approaching Ł50m, and with no word of complaint
from the then Irish Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy, Tony Blair was writing to
the Romanian Prime Minister recommending Mittal as a suitable custodian of
Romania's steel industry. Mittal's Ł125,000 donation to Blair weeks earlier was
coincidental, I am sure.
The donations to Labour have continued
and, again coincidentally, under the British presidency anti-dumping tariffs on
steel produced by Mittal Steel outside the EU have continued to be reduced by
Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.
But what will happen once
Romania and Bulgaria are on the inside? They hope for an increase in their
standard of living, but with that comes an increase in the costs of production.
And, just as Mittal moved production from Ireland to Romania, where will Romania
and Bulgaria's production go to? Kazakhstan? Algeria? Serbia?
Bosnia-Herzogovina? Because Mr Mittal has bought their steel industries with the
aid of loans from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and the
World Bank. European taxpayers are subsidising the export of their own heavy
industries!
The sale of Sidex was seen to have helped Romania's
bid for EU membership. What will be the price for the next wave of candidate
countries? Are the Romanian and Bulgarian governments happy to pay for EU
membership with the jobs of their steel workers? What other industries have
similar deals hidden away? Will the Commission release the documents the British
government has chosen to keep hidden so Romanian and Bulgarian voters can decide
if this is a price worth paying? If the rumours of Mr Mittal's takeover bid for
Corus/British Steel are true, they may rapidly discover more rapidly than
expected whether their own industries have any future, or whether it will follow
MG Rover's Blair sponsored example".
*** sustineti [romania_eu_list] prin 1% din impozitul pe 2005 -
detalii la http://www.europe.org.ro/euroatlantic_club/unulasuta.php ***
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