Industrial policy and competition policy. State aid and the restructuring of the European steel industry in the 1980s

Using documents from the Historical Archives of the European Union, the article assesses the results of the restructuring of the European Community steel sector carried out at the beginning of the 1980s, considered to be the first European industrial policy. The article concludes that State aid control by the European Commission, through the so-called aid codes, was the main tool of the Community restructuring policy and contributed to resolve the crisis that the sector had been suffering from the mid-1970s, even though the objectives set by the Commission were not fully achieved.