Germany's Merz, finance minister call for European patriotism to protect steel industry

BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil signalled a new European patriotism to protect the steel industry on Thursday after a summit bringing together domestic producers, German states and trade unions.

"If we invest heavily in our defence industry, then we can ... say that we want to give preference to European and domestic products," Klingbeil said at a press conference alongside the chancellor.

"A little more 'buy European,' a little more European patriotism - I think that would help," he said.

Merz said he would throw his weight behind an EU plan to protect the bloc's steel sector, adding that a Franco-German push might be in the works.

Last month, the European Commission proposed cutting tariff-free steel import quotas by almost half along with a doubling of the out-of-quota duty to 50%.

"There are proposals at the European level, and we agree that we want to support them," Merz said. "The debate even turned to whether we could accelerate the whole process with France."

Most German political parties have previously opposed protectionism as its export-oriented economy has for the past two decades been one of the world's greatest beneficiaries of low trade barriers.

However, German manufacturers and regulators are now increasingly worried about the distorting impact of competition from China and elsewhere and of U.S. tariffs.

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt and Friederike Heine, Editing by Madeline Chambers)