Cameron is unsure about the future of the UK steel industry

"There is no guarantee that efforts to bail out the UK steel industry will succeed," UK Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday, chilling hopes that the government will be able to save thousands of threatened jobs in the sector.

At the end of March, the metallurgical concern Tata Steel put up for sale its controlled plants in the UK. This is a signal of the threat of the complete destruction of 15 thousand jobs in the British steel industry.

This is especially bad for Cameron ahead of a June 23 referendum in which the British must decide their country's future in the European Union. The British government has announced that it is ready to take over up to 25 percent of Tata's UK manufacturing capacity to support the domestic steel mills proposed to buyers, given that it is only interested in two.

But on Wednesday, during a speech in the House of Commons, Cameron highlighted the dramatic situation in the steel industry, which is grappling with the fallout from declining global steel demand, competition from China and rising production costs. "There is no guarantee of success," Cameron said. "While I want to do my best to secure the future of the sector, we are dealing with a huge oversupply and falling prices," he added.

Earlier this month, investment fund Greybull announced that it had acquired Tata's European structural steel division. A total of 4,700 people work in the department in Scunthorpe in the North East of England. The sale and purchase agreement provides for a £ 400 million investment in Scunthorpe by the new owner, while the restructuring and major operating costs of the facility are being consulted with unions and suppliers. In accordance with the agreement, the plant took the traditional name of the British Steel company. Greybull Tata only has to pay a symbolic price of one pound.

By contrast, finding a buyer for the largest steel project in Port Talbot, South Wales, employing 4,000 people, may take a while because negotiations with Tata are much broader, ranging from retirement planning and energy subsidies. Representatives of the referendum campaign calling for an EU withdrawal criticized the community for failing to prevent the flow of China's cheap imported steel and EU competition law principles prohibiting government aid that would be direct support from public funds for endangered industries.