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The state recovers the steel of Taranto. After 25 years since the sale of the ai Riva, the state is part of the largest and most complex steel plant in Europe. With today’s signature, in fact, through Invitalia the Ministry of Economy sets foot in the management of the factory leased from 2018 to the multinational ArcelorMittal. The first, but not the last. Today’s signing, in fact, is the beginning of a path that will take the State in two years to become the majority shareholder of the AmInvestco company.
A path that foresees a major capital increase by the State: the first 400 million euros should arrive next February and, as Il Sole 24ore announced, another 800 million will be paid until 2022, which will allow the State to own 60 percent. percent of the company’s shares. The agreement between Mittal and Invitalia for the transfer of control of the Taranto plant provides for “an articulated plan for environmental and industrial investments,” the Mef note read. “Among other things, the plant’s decarbonisation process will start, with the activation of an electric furnace capable of producing up to 2.5 million tons per year.”
But if state intervention had sparked a wave of hope in Taranto, tired of decades of poisons and disease, the announcement of the new agreement and the new industrial plan have generated a new conflict not only between factory managers and environmental associations, but also between local institutions and the central government. On the one hand, in fact, the agreement foresees to maintain, once fully operational, without changes the level of employment with 10 thousand employees of which 8,200 only in TarantoOn the other hand, it is unknown what will happen to the more than 2000 workers who, in the transition from Ilva in Extraordinary Administration to Arcelor, were left in charge of the first with the promise of reincorporation in the factory in 2023. A point on which, It is easy to foresee, the unions will fight.
Not only. The new industrial plan foresees to produce 8 million tons of steel again in 2025: production will be guaranteed by the remodeling of the Blast Furnace5 (stopped since 2015 and which alone could guarantee 5 million tons) and the use of the Blast Furnace 4 and, for the first time in Taranto, also an electric furnace. And if the CEO of Invitalia Arcuri has guaranteed that emissions will be significantly reduced, there is already an air of protest in the Ionian capital. Just a few days ago Alessandro Marescotti of Peacelink, had denounced that despite the low production, the factory polluted more: “Comparing the data of Arpa 2019 (from January to November) with the Barley 2020 (from January to November) it arises – explained Marescotti – that in the district of Tamburi in 2020 there were the following increases in pollution compared to 2019 in ambient air “specifying that benzene, a carcinogenic substance, had increased by 128 percent in the district and 215 percent in the control units around the perimeter of the factory.
The new agreement has also aroused strong reaction from the mayor of Taranto, Rinaldo Melucci, the president of the province, Giovanni Gugliotti, and some mayors of the territory who gave their tricolor bands to the prefect Demetrio Martino “as a sign of protest and denouncement of what is being done.” The lack of participation at the negotiating table did not fall with the local institutions. Melucci explained that “the Government is preparing to sign the sacrifice of other generations of Taranto, without even making public the terms of the agreement with the private” adding “for the occasion, in memory of the many victims of the past and with the heart became towards those who still get sick these days and will continue to get sick due to the former Ilva, the aforementioned local authorities will put their posters at half-mast and list in mourning one of the symbolic monuments of the history and aspirations of the Ionian community. ” The new era of Taranto steel, therefore, start with half-mast flags. And for once, citizens and local institutions seem to have a unique position. For now.
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