Today the Minister of Economic Development, Luigi Di Maio, will meet the top management of ArcelorMittal, the steel giant that won the tender for the acquisition of Ilva of Taranto. It will be a high-tension summit, as the French-Indian group received the worst news last night. Indeed, the Government has started the administrative procedure for the possible cancellation of the tender on Ilva: a self-protection process that will last about 30 days. “The decision was taken – explains Di Maio – following internal checks on the Ilva dossier and having listened to the opinion provided by the Anti-Corruption Authority. It is a necessary act to ascertain the facts following the important critical issues that have emerged".
Only yesterday ArcelorMittal had tried to avert this prospect by announcing that it had accepted the requests of the Ilva commissioners on an environmental level it's presented an improvement proposal, which provided for the early closure of the most important construction sites, the covering of the mining parks and the belt that transports the coal from the port to the plant and the disposal of the resulting material from the blast furnace.
ArcelorMittal had opened also in terms of employment, declaring itself available to increase the number of workers hired, hitherto stopped at 10 thousand, counting however on a massive intervention by the State for the absorption of all the 350 thousand redundancies, with the creation of public companies for reclamation (which will last 5 years), the use of the rolling redundancy fund and exit incentives.
Di Maio intends to examine the proposal and convene a meeting with ArcelorMittal and the trade unions. But maybe that won't be enough. “After the critical issues raised by the Anac – Di Maio said again – I'm still going ahead with the investigations. Let me be clear: the two things go together. We are entrusting him with the largest steel mill in Europe which has had a devastating impact on health. This impact is what we have to avoid so we need a well done tender with a fair and valid environmental plan procedure”.
Meanwhile, the final signing of the contract for the transfer of theformer Lucchini plant in Piombino to the Indian group Jsw headed by Sajjan Jindal. The same group that had lost the race for Ilva.
