Members of troubled European industries including steel and aluminium will descend on Brussels in their thousands next Monday to protest against proposed measures to give China greater access to EU markets, and call for action on subsidized Chinese imports. Europe's industrial decline has picked up pace in recent years, with some 85,000 jobs lost in the steel sector alone since 2008, more than 20 percent of the workforce, thanks in part to a flood of cheap Chinese imports. Industrial sector representatives fear millions more jobs will be at risk if Brussels grants China 'market economy status' from December - a move that would make it harder to impose anti-dumping duties on subsidized Chinese goods. "Chinese dumping destroys EU jobs and undermines free and fair trade. Europe cannot afford to put up to 3.5 million jobs and 228 billion euros in lost annual GDP at risk," said European industry alliance AEGIS Europe. The EU is debating whether to treat China as a market economy from December, which Beijing says is its right 15 years after it joined the World Trade Organisation. It has promised to protect industry even if the new trade status is granted. EU industry representatives do not believe this is possible. Steel association Eurofer says almost all the 330,000 steel jobs in Europe are at risk if the EU lowers its trade defences against China. "We are staunch advocates for free and fair trade. Dumped steel imports from China, volumes of which have doubled in 18 months, are ... directly causing irreversible closures and job losses across the EU steel sector," said Eurofer. Of the 69 EU anti-dumping duties in force on a range of products from steel to solar panels, only 17 are not targeted against China. The EU is China's largest trading partner, while China ranks second after the United States for the EU. Those in favour of treating China as a market economy say Europeans benefit from cheaper Chinese imports and that EU companies will gain easier access to China's vast market in return. Rebuffing Beijing also risks retaliation, they add.