The iron and steel plants of the former Ilva in Taranto, now Acciaierie d'Italia, will have to be reclaimed but the environmental and health emergency conditions do not exist such as to order their immediate closure. So the Council of State decided, after the mayor of Taranto Rinaldo Melucci he had ordered the hot systems to be shut down within 120 days (60 to identify them and remove critical issues, or another 60 to suspend their activity). Palazzo Spada therefore overturned the first judgment of the TAR, which instead had confirmed the appeal presented by ArcelorMittal and Ilva: according to the administrative judges, the power of emergency ordinance held by the mayor of Taranto was exercised outside the law.
Especially because there was no urgency: no facts have emerged, writes the Council of State in sentence no. 4802 of 23 June 2021, "such as to highlight and adequately prove that the danger of recurrence of the emission events was so imminent as to justify the contingent and urgent ordinance, or that the feared danger would lead to a worsening of the health situation in the city of Taranto, such to be induced to bring forward the pre-established timing for the implementation of the improvements” of the plants.
The ordinance had been issued, in the exercise of the mayor's powers of necessity and urgency to protect the health of citizens, following episodes of fume and gas emissions that occurred in August 2019 and February 2020 and the subsequent environmental and sanitary. However, according to the judges “it emerged that the most recent emissive episodes they are not due to structural defects of the system, and a conglomeration of data has been acquired which is sometimes irrelevant and in any case not such as to prove with certainty the existence of particular anomalies such as to constitute a serious and imminent danger to the population”. In short, there will be no stoppage of the plants in the hot area of the Taranto iron and steel industry. And so the recovery plan can regain momentum.
Where were we? In recent months, ArcelorMittal Italia has become Acciaierie d'Italia Holding, a new company in which the State has entered the capital through Invitalia, with a capital increase of 400 million which corresponds to a 38% stake, with 50% voting rights in the shareholders' meeting. In the light of the ruling by the Council of State, the new company will now have to present an environmentally compatible industrial plan: "The objective - commented Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti - is to respond to the needs of the development of the national steel supply chain by embracing the philosophy of the PNRR recently approved".
