Former Ilva, Urso calls for an all-out round table from 8 July on the Programme Agreement

Adolfo Urso, the Minister of Enterprise, is imposing tight deadlines on the discussions with the Puglia region and local authorities on the programme agreement for the decarbonisation of the former Ilva plant in Taranto. After Friday's videocall with the trade unions and the discussion that the Taranto and Puglia institutions held on 1 July in Bari with the social partners, Urso called for 8 July, from 9.30 am, the parties invited to sign the agreement. It will be a confrontation to the bitter end, conclusive, in view of the services conference on the new Integrated Environmental Authorisation for the plant that the Ministry of the Environment has convened for 10 July. The aim is to dismiss both the agreement and the new AIA in a few days in order to break the deadlock on the former Ilva case.

Meanwhile, after the 'no' votes in recent days on the draft programme agreement proposed by the government on the former Ilva, a glimmer of hope is opening up. The Apulia Region and local authorities - the municipalities of Taranto and Statte, the Province of Taranto and the Ionian Sea Port Authority - are willing to sit at the table and negotiate. The objective to be aimed at, and expressed at the summit convened on 1 July by the Apulia Region, is to improve and modify the contents of the draft agreement sent by Mimit in recent days. The text focuses on the decarbonisation of steel production and indicates a series of actions. Namely, the go-ahead for the new Integrated Environmental Authorisation, which incorporates the Health Impact Assessment and implements the European Court of Justice ruling of a year ago; the progressive construction of three new electric furnaces and as many pre-reduction plants; the decommissioning of the current three blast furnaces; the supply of gas through a regasification ship; and the installation, in the sea, of a platform to desalinate water, given that gas and water in large quantities are needed by the factory.

Mayor Taranto: ensuring respect for the territory

Electric furnaces, ship and desalination, are the aspects of the draft agreement that do not convince the local authorities. On the furnaces, the conclusion to 2039 is considered temporally excessive, while on the regasifier ship and the platform to desalinate water, the environmental impacts on an already scarred city are worrying. Says the mayor of Taranto, Piero Bitetti: "We are willing to look at this programme agreement on the former Ilva but with conditions. You certainly cannot go against respect for the territory'. And the conditions that will now be set, says the mayor, are 'certainly the safety of the territory, attention to employment, a much shorter period for the completion of the decarbonisation of the factory, which today has been proposed as 2039 as the conclusion. The agreement must be built in two. We have represented this several times. Now we will do an update and in the meantime the summons has arrived for 10 July from the Ministry of the Environment regarding the new Integrated Environmental Authorisation of the former Ilva'.

Regional President: 6 million tonnes oversized Aia