Since the first European Electric Steel Congress, held in Aachen, Germany, in 1983, a number of 8 cyclic conferences have been organised. All of them took place in West Europe, while the coming 9-th conference will be held for the first time in East Europe, at Krakow, Poland. As the fraction of the total world steel production coming from electric arc furnaces is up to 30% nowadays and we witness a non-stop technical development of the electric arc process and its auxiliary equipment as well as environmental problems are appearing - all these require better cooperation of steelmaking people. The objective of the 9th European Electric Steelmaking Conference is to provide a forum for information transfer of the latest techniques and applications in electric furnace steelmaking area by bringing together steel producers, research and academic people active in steelmaking industries, energy production and plant supply.