The European Union is facing mounting pressure from European-based steel companies to reshape the world's largest carbon-trading system or face a massive loss of jobs. The conflict pits the EU's environmental goals against its desire to keep high-paying jobs on the Continent. Europe's steel industry generates 140 billion euros (178 billion dollars) in sales annually, employs about 370,000 people directly and about one million people indirectly, with suppliers and downstream industries such as car manufacturers and other companies that use steel in a major fashion accounting for a total of 22 million jobs, according to the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries, or Eurofer. Almost 500 million people live in the EU.
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