McHale says that it is not just foreign exporters like Dubal and Bahrain's Alba that are hurt by the six per cent tax on their products, but Europe's own aluminium consumers. Fortunately there are now many dissatisfied consumers of aluminium - in extrusion, the automotive industry. What we want is to get the dissatisfied European customers' voice heard in Brussels. It was they who invited us to these early meetings. McHale says that Dubal will be taking observer status in the organisation, and that they will automatically invite Australian producers, along with Alba, Bahrain's smelter, to the same status.
Full members are initially likely to come from consumers in Britain, Italy, France and Germany.
Either they'll join, or not. We've had meetings in the UK and they are very interested. This is not the only way Dubal is trying to move the arguments forward in Europe. The only way to do this is to change the mind of the politicians. We have put a significant amount of effort into the GCC-EU free trade negotiations and have been very successful.