European Commission gave the authorization

The European Commission authorised the English Rio Tinto to gain control of the Canadian Alcan. At the end of the usual case analysis procedure, the Commission reached a conclusion that the proposed acquisition does not represent an actual limitation to competition in the European Economic Area or in significant areas of the same. Nevertheless, giving its positive opinion, the Commission acknowledged that an oligarchy of control on the raw material chain in the global aluminium sector does exist.

Concerning the operations of Rio Tinto and Alcan in the bauxite, alumina and aluminium markets, the official announcement in facts speaks about the confrontation of the new future entity as “...a shortlist of competitors which hold significant shares of the market”. We must add here that there is no doubt that once the said operation is finalised, the weight of this control will burden on European non-integrated aluminium transformers and users as an even further heavy risk factor. It is clear at this point that the path for the abolition of the duty on primary aluminium, which began only a few months ago (after many long years of lobbying actions by F.A.C.E. Association) with a first small but important step forward by the temporary reduction of the duty from 6% to 3% on non alloyed metal, will now have to be promptly accelerated.

The goal is to completely eliminate the duty on all kinds of primary metals as soon as possible so that access to primary metal by small and medium sized non-integrated aluminium companies operating in Europe will not be penalized further beyond measures.

Finally we must add that completely demolishing the preventive complaints of the same old ‘jinxs’ who feared that big distortions of the system could take place, the reductions of duty, as experimented so far, were well accepted by the market because they have shown to represent a first step towards normality, without privileges, distortions and undue position rents which ruled European aluminium system for a long time.