At the time of the 1974 crisis, the European steel industry had long been in decline. The crisis of the 1970s was not the beginning of the process but a pow erful accelerating factor. The almost complete inability of most of the actors involved to take the available indicators into account is explained by an unfor tunate combination of structural characteristics of the industry (cyclical fea tures, time needed for strategy implementation, barriers to exit) and subjective beliefs and ideologies.
For many years, the typical behavior of most steel industry actors was an example of parametric rationality (do as before) or overcompensation (do as before, but more). In very few cases was decline perceived and dealt with be fore the crisis. Increasingly, strategies of management of decline are adopted, aimed at lowering and distributing the social and economic costs of contrac tion. Given its nature and costs, this strategy is typically implemented by actors (national governments, the Commission of the European Communities) other than those directly involved.
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