Liberty Steel Dudelange is left without an investor, workers without certainty

Liberty Steel's plant in Dudelange is on the brink - and not for the first time. On 7 May 2025, the Luxembourg Ministries of Economy and Labour confirmed that the Turkish group Tosyali had officially withdrawn from negotiations to buy the company. For the 150 employees, this was not just a disappointment, but a new act in a long-running drama that increasingly resembles an endless cycle of hope, deception and lack of responsibility.

The unions recall that at every stage the authorities have made promises that were then broken. Today, disappointment has been replaced by anger and anger by fear of the "silent death" of another Luxembourg industrial company.

OGBL and LCGB demanded an urgent meeting with the ministers of economy and labour. According to them, it is necessary to:

• specific measures to protect jobs;
• launching a sectoral retraining and support programme (based on the "CDR" model - Cellule de Reclassement), previously successfully applied in the metallurgy and aviation sectors.

This approach would make it possible not to throw people overboard, but to offer them retraining, temporary transfer to other structures or individual support. The main thing is to maintain employment.

The unions emphasise that Liberty Steel is not just jobs, it is part of the country's industrial potential. It cannot be lost. The plant is viable - and this has been confirmed. At a time when Europe is striving to restore its strategic autonomy, losing steelmaking capacity is against the interests of the state.

Luxembourg cannot afford to be indifferent to industrial decline. The situation in Dudelange is a wake-up call that cannot be ignored.