There will be no job cuts arising out of this merger in Europe - this is in the interest of jobs in Europe.

Production cutbacks have remained in place in the third quarter and this has helped to further reduce inventory levels worldwide.

We are not in the business of iron ore. Whatever captive iron ore sources we have, we use it to make steel.

It's difficult for them to do a deal at these levels.

The danger, though - and there have been signs of this recently - is that Europe begins to demonstrate a return to more nationalist sentiment. To my mind, that would be a great mistake.

In the past twenty years, we have lived through several cycles and we have always managed to buy under good terms and conditions at the right time. This has enabled us to build a solid group that is now the world number one.

I understand that this has taken a lot of politicians by surprise. But we believe that this is an important and right step for the steel industry.