There is only one thing that the government can (and must) do to solve the problem of Ilva in Taranto and that is to separate, with a special decree law, the industrial destiny of Ilva from the judicial one which concerns some of its shareholders and manager. Ilva is one thing as an industrial group, which produces and sells steel all over the world, which feeds a vital industrial chain for the country and which employs thousands of people, and the possible criminal liability of shareholders and managers is another thing. .
Ilva, as an industrial group, must be dealt with by the government and the competent national and international administrations, while the investigating judiciary must deal, only and exclusively, violations of environmental and safety standards and any crimes connected to them.
The Government, through Minister Clini, has taken on the responsibility of defining an extremely precise and rigorous program of reclamation, environmental protection and safety. A very onerous program both for private companies and for the State. A program that anticipates by a few years the entry into force in Italy of new and more stringent environmental regulations which will only become mandatory in 2017 in the rest of Europe.
It is not an easy path for anyone! Ilva will be able to continue to produce (and sell) steel only if it scrupulously respects the rules and deadlines defined in the AIA (integrated environmental authorisation) while the Government, Local Authorities and the competent Administrations will have to demonstrate that they know how to effectively exercise the the supervisory action that belongs to them. It is a difficult challenge for Italy but it is the only way we have to reclaim Taranto without bringing it to its knees and without mortally wounding the Italian steel industry.
For its part, the investigating judiciary must carry out its fact-finding investigation by acquiring all the evidence it needs to substantiate its alleged crime and to send it to trial, if the elements are sufficient to do so, not Ilva but the executives that they were actually responsible for specific crimes. If the Court agrees with the Public Prosecutors then they will be convicted, otherwise they will be acquitted.
The prosecutor, Dr. Sebastio, on the other hand, seems to ignore this elementary distinction and acts not against the managers but against Ilva as such. At the origin of the crime of environmental disaster, criminal conspiracy, attack on safety and so on there are not (or there are not only) specific individual behaviours, but, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office, there is the hot area of the plant . It is the hot area that has poisoned the city and it is this that must be closed immediately if the crime is to cease. It is no coincidence that Dr. Sebastio has ordered the seizure of the coils, the result of even partial (and authorized) production in recent months.
In fact, these are corpus delicti which, as such, cannot be sold but must be seized and stored. This is an obvious absurdity and also an unacceptable anticipation of the penalty. In fact, it is not up to the Public Prosecutor to say whether or not the hot area is at the origin of all the ills of Taranto. This can only be decided by a Court at the end of an extensive debate and an in-depth comparison between the different analyzes of the prosecution and the defence.
In any case, even if a trial were to be reached, it is difficult to imagine that a Court could order the closure of a plant for which reclamation and safety works defined at national and European level are in progress and which see the the government. At the most, it will be able to condemn the managers if it finds them guilty, but certainly not interrupt the reclamation and the productive activity.
We need to break the institutional short circuit that was created through the responsibility of the Prosecutor of Taranto and give to Caesar (the government) what belongs to Caesar (the reclamation) and to God (the Judiciary) what belongs to God (prosecuting the faults). If the confusion of roles were to persist, the outcome would be an institutional and social conflict of enormous proportions. Better stop while you still have time.
