The meeting held today at the headquarters of the Ministry of Economic Development between the top management of Alcoa, Minister Carlo Calenda and the President of the Region Francesco Pigliaru, had as its central theme the future of the Sulcis plant after the announcement by the American multinational of the intention to dismantle it permanently. The unions also expect to know if Glencore (the Swiss company interested in acquiring the smelter) has made a decision.
“Minister Calenda opened the meeting by reminding us that after two years no response has come from Glencore. – underlines Marco Bentivogli, general secretary of Fim Cisl-Alcoa has obtained from the local institutions the authorization for the dismantling. Yesterday, in response to Alcoa's request to start dismantling, the Government asked to suspend the procedure and a further period (12-18 months) to look for a buyer and, if a buyer is not found within this period, it will assume responsibility to dismantle the plant, without prejudice to Alcoa's responsibilities for remediation".
“To avoid Alcoa's action to oppose the sale – continues Bentivogli -, in the first hypothesis, the Government will guarantee that the plant is sold to the buyer, otherwise, it will take charge of the dismantling. At the same time, the Government has requested the willingness to be able to carry out the due diligence immediately. Within 7 days, Alcoa will respond by proposing a hypothetical agreement to be signed by November 1st”.
Minister Calenda - accepting our request - also declared that this afternoon he will sign the attribution for Sulcis in the complex crisis area, both as regards the part of the shock absorbers and for law 181, to put resources on new investments. He then specified that this intervention has nothing to do with a hypothesis of nationalization, which would be not only wrong but technically impossible. It is only a question of a strong responsibility on the part of the Government, which will act as a guarantor as a sort of "public filter" to find a concrete way out of this endless dispute. The measures for energy-intensive people, which the restart of Portovesme will also benefit from, will also be included in the stability law".
“After six years of litigation, now is the time to find real, new investors. Finally, Sulcis was included in the decree for complex crisis areas: it was incredible that up to now it hadn't been foreseen. The length and drama of this dispute reflects the inability of institutions, especially local ones, to make multinationals responsible for the search for industrial solutions. Up to this moment there has been an unacceptable rebound of responsibility. From today's meeting we hope a path of discontinuity with the wait-and-see attitude and benevolence of the past will be opened”.
The next verification meeting with the Minister in Sulcis will be held in 15 days.
