The Košice self-governing region has offered to buy the largest employer in eastern Slovakia U.S. Steel Košice for one euro. The local government thus aims to prevent the consequences of negative developments at the steelworks, in particular further redundancies. "So far we have made an unofficial offer, to buy it under similar conditions as those observed in the Serbian city of Smederevo, where a steelworks was bought by the public sector for one dollar," stated Košice region governor Rastislav Trnka.
U.S. Steel Košice, with 12,000 employees, recently announced that it plans 2,500 redundancies by 2021 due to the unfavourable situation on the steel market. In reaction to the trade war between China and the US, a lot of cheap Chinese steel is being dumped on the European market. Moreover, the EU has introduced so-called environmental taxes for local steel producers.
