Former Ilva, decision on agreement postponed until 31 July

The meeting at the Ministry of Enterprise on the former Ilva has been concluded. A minute was signed postponing the final decision until 31 July and setting up a technical commission to give more elements to all the options as envisaged in the proposal formulated by Mimit today. This is what we learn from Mimit. "I really hope that we can reach an agreement on the signing of the programme agreement and thus succeed in doing what is the government's objective: not only to save Ilva, but to make Ilva one of the most modern realities in Europe," Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin had said on his arrival at the ex-Ilva table with the local authorities to seek an inter-institutional agreement in view of the new integrated environmental and health authorisation AIA for Taranto. "The AIA however as a procedure goes ahead" there is an independent commission and "it will evaluate," he added. Tomorrow the services conference is scheduled to meet at the environment ministry on the Aia. On Thursday, the services conference is scheduled at the Ministry of the Environment to approve the new AIA, and the Milan court ruling is expected shortly. Without this authorisation, it could be the end of the line for production activity.

In the meantime, Puglia's governor Michele Emiliano has put forward the hypothesis of an agreement that does not go into detail on the regasifier but only on the quantity of gas needed to achieve production targets. He did so at the end of the discussion at Mimit with the trade unions, which are also pressing for a pole that would include the production of the pre-diesel, i.e. the raw material.

Eight million tons of green steel production target each year, of which six in Taranto. This is the government's goal set out in the decarbonisation plan presented to the trade unions at the meeting at the Ministry of Enterprise on the eve of the round table with local authorities on the interinstitutional agreement needed for the new integrated environmental and health authorisation (IEA). The plan envisages three electric furnaces in the Apulian steel plant and one in Genoa plus four plants for the production of the pre-reduced fuel needed to feed the new furnaces, to be built in Taranto (if it agrees to host a regasifier ship) or in another area of southern Italy, perhaps Gioia Tauro.

A new tender will still be needed to find a buyer. The current tender, which has come to an exclusive negotiation with the Azerbaijan-based Baku Steel, will have to be updated to the new conditions of the plan, which impose faster timeframes for decarbonisation, cut from twelve to seven or eight years. It is 'likely', according to the minister, that in light of the planned decarbonisation 'additional international partners will come forward'. The trade unions, however, demand certainty. 'I hope that an agreement can be found so that we can move forward,' hoped the secretary general of Uilm, Rocco Palombella, as he left the ministry. 'Without the preriduct, the plant risks having no future,' explained Fim Cisl leader Ferdinando Uliano. While Fiom CGIL leader Michele De Palma called for 'public capital' to manage the transition to decarbonisation with the workers. Instead, 'the draft plan is without even a figure, without even a number on the employment plan,' noted CGIL confederal secretary Pino Gesmundo.