DUISBURG (dpa-AFX) - Bundestag President Bärbel Bas is campaigning for the preservation of Thyssenkrupp's steel sites in North Rhine-Westphalia. "If Thyssenkrupp were to wind up steel, the entire Ruhr region would be on its feet. What's more, there would be protests throughout Germany," the Duisburg SPD MP told the Rheinische Post newspaper. She demanded a concept quickly: "Ownership obliges: Thyssenkrupp has a responsibility to the people in the coalfield, but also to the taxpayers. After all, the Group is receiving two billion euros from the federal and state governments for the green restructuring."

Thyssenkrupp's steel division intends to present details of the planned reduction in production capacity in Duisburg this summer. Germany's largest steel producer had announced a significant reduction, which will involve the loss of jobs. This is the company's response to the weakening economy and increased energy costs.

The Thyssenkrupp steel division employs around 27,000 people, 13,000 of them in Duisburg alone. The parent company Thyssenkrupp is planning to make the division independent. The first step towards this is to be a 20 percent investment by the energy company EPCG, owned by Czech investor Daniel Kretinsky.

Bas spoke out in favor of "the state being given a seat on the supervisory board in order to control what happens with the taxpayers' money". The two billion euros for the climate-friendly conversion are "significantly more than the investor Daniel Kretinsky is paying for his investment in steel. It is good to involve the state at an early stage - it would be required to do so anyway if sites were to be closed, added the Social Democrat.

"It is also conceivable that the state could get involved in individual companies such as Thyssenkrupp Steel," said Bas. "Germany must not become dependent on other countries for this raw material."/brd/DP/he