In the space of a few weeks, at the end of a long and industrious life, we said goodbye to two great protagonists of Italian steel: Luigi Lucchini and Steno Marcegaglia. With the entrepreneurial end of Emilio Riva, the story of a generation that was able to build the second European steel industry in the post-war period seems to have ended. Nicola Amenduni remains, strong in age, health and capital, to preside over that generation of pioneers.
The second generation, that of the heirs, remains entrenched in their family factories, largely characterized by low value-added production such as rebar, linked to scrap and to a market that we can now define as "regional". For years, they have concentrated capital and investments aimed at continuous technological and energy innovation in their production forts in order to be able to defend themselves from competition favored by cost factors that are completely unthinkable in the European Community.
Yet this last generation today cannot escape from a strategic reflection in the face of the crumbling of the Riva empire and the inglorious end of the Lucchini of Piombino. There are those who want to buy time by demanding a "Plan" under the illusion of being able to restore dirigiste rules or state interventions made impossible by European constraints and by the reality of our public finances. We respond to them with the urgency of opening a constructive reflection on the "national iron and steel question" in order not to throw overboard the backbone of Italian steel which is a decisive part of the quality and competitiveness of our mechanical industry.
If the "iron and steel question" is not tackled, the agony of Piombino and the legal quibbles of Taranto will end up destroying a wealth of professional and trade skills with the certainty of waking up, in a few years, with no more competence in the management and planning of the ore or blast furnace iron and steel.
What to do? In my opinion, the Minister has only one path, which is certainly not that of invoking financial support from the banking system for the ordinary and temporary management of the iron and steel sites. First of all, he must acknowledge and confirm to politics that rails, wire rods, beams, coils, plates, slabs risk definitively leaving the horizon of the Italian steel industry, completely restricting the production base of the sector. Before starting any discussion with Brussels on support for technological reconversion and environmental protection or putting tables and negotiations of any kind on the track, Zanonato must be able to count on future management of the sites by a new, courageous, professional and far-sighted entrepreneurship .
In the private iron and steel industry there are men rich in ability and capital, today attested to by their personal businesses. There are entrepreneurs in the steel plant engineering sector who have achieved international records and successes. There are the conditions to push them to joint action, building an undisputed leadership and the essential conditions to be able to face the times of the new shareholding structures. Politics must do this. Credit, like Napoleonic subsistence, will follow.
The suspension of the activities of most of the Riva Group companies has accelerated the urgency of a positive and constructive response. The country is not interested in the tug of war that has been established for some time between the Taranto courthouse, the government and the Riva Group. It is interesting to know if we can do without the steel of Taranto and Piombino by becoming net importers, marginalizing the manufacturing sector that has made Italy strong in decline. On the contrary, those who want to defend this productive trench should work to call to their entrepreneurial duty the heirs of that courageous group of iron and steel workers who were able to establish themselves successfully in the post-war years.
