The billion that the Mittals say they are ready to pay to "get rid" of the commitments undertaken in Taranto is not entirely a far-fetched hypothesis. The figure is not far from the judicial dispute set up between the old Commissioners and the French-Indian company nor from the possible arbitration award that would pass the courtrooms by foot. Absurdly (but rightly so) Mittal and his Arcelor would eventually do it an investment able to get out of the Italian swamp and capable of repaying any disbursement in a short period of time.
The Mittals have experienced first-hand the weakness of the Italian interlocutory front and their collaborators, hired in Italy, are perfectly familiar with the legislative, institutional and financial Baroque that supports powers at all levels and subordinates them to one another, including the judiciary.
The Government raised its voice and gave vent to stamp papers at the same time as a hoped one underground negotiation capable of leading to a compromise made achievable by putting a hand on public finances. Messrs. Mittal have been in the game twice, even allowing themselves the luxury of leaving the CEO of the former Ilva outside the door of the meeting with the government, even if he is freshly appointed and endowed with full powers. Powers that Lucia Morselli has demonstrated in recent days by holding the ax of layoffs, the drastic reduction in steel production, the overall strategic downsizing of the Taranto plant.
Thus, as they say, the top management of Arcelor Mittal measured the government's fever, with a thermometer already used in the dozens of company crises, now devoid of any prospects other than layoffs and the emblematic Alitalia fund: proof of a total strategic absence from the Ministry of Economic Development. Let's go back to steel.
The Mittals have experienced first-hand not the Italian complexity but the jungle that underlies our country's financial, industrial and trade union relations. The vetoes passed off as counterweights. The interpretation of the rules that one wants as a pillar of the rule of law. A judiciary that opens files without ever closing them neither when nor where he wants. For example, the Rivas, demonized and expropriated, are still awaiting trial! The Mittals know that after them no international player could take the field after them. They also know that the possible disbursement of one billion would ultimately be spent by the Commissioner's management in a period of low international steel market, used to maintain staff, production, reclamation, revamping of plants and territorial charges. At the end of the Taranto agony with the end of the Ilva the Mittals would remove the potentially stronger competitor from the rich market of Europe, freeing up a large market, the entire steel consumer sector which is very strong in Italy, leaving the whole Mediterranean and the Middle East free in the flat products sector.
Perhaps it has not escaped the Mittals that not even public capital could be an obstacle to their design. In fact, to relaunch Taranto and the supply chain, not only capital is needed but top-level steel managers. No concrete signs of availability have come from the private Italian steel industry. The old managers public have been enjoying their retirement on the Côte d'Azur for years. The Rivas feel like exiles, the Patrias despite the fact that they grind over 3 and a half million in turnover in their factories. The Rocca look the other way. The Chinesethe premise of each speech how many billions the state puts on the table. Germans? It seems that Merkel reminded a Giuseppe Conte in search of help of the arrest and imprisonment warrants issued by the Italian judiciary at the top of Tyssen. Ilva's problem is difficult to solve.
