The showdown on Ilva

The Taranto steelworks went bankrupt when the Meloni government decided to take it away from ArcelorMittal and put it into extraordinary administration, preventing the commissioners from turning Afo5 back on: the largest blast furnace in Europe , which alone would have guaranteed the production of 4 million tons of integral steel for the next twenty years. During which time new electric furnaces could have been added. Instead, the government thought it could replace them, on a sliding scale, with new plants, keeping the current ones up until 2039. However, they collapsed one after the other in the hands of the extraordinary administration. And while 7 billion would be needed for a new cycle, Ilva is losing 50 million a day with only one million tons produced . And if the state cannot proceed with a bridging loan every three months, there are no investors willing to lose billions between the judiciary and local authorities for plants that have been under seizure for 10 years .

Beyond the narrative about state steel, and the largest green steelworks in Europe, the government's plan has crashed with these disastrous choices . After realizing this, there was an attempt to shift the responsibility for the "closure" first onto the Taranto prosecutor's office, then onto the Milan court, and finally onto local authorities. So much so that they even told them, for the first time in history: if they want to close it, the government is available. At that point, however, Michele Emiliano, governor of Puglia, changed his mind once again, and in contrast to the populism of his mandate, he responded: "We are willing to sign for a regasification plant, desalination plant, electric furnaces, as long as you give us new jobs in healthcare". At this point, the government is against the wall. If it were to appear before the Milan court in mid-July without environmental authorization, Ilva would also close the last half-service AFO . But the authorization expired over a year ago, and it is the Ministry of the Environment that gives it on the old plants. This time, local authorities and the prosecutor's office have nothing to do with it.

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