Former Ilva, after the ruling, a company even more in the balance

L’ex Ilva of Taranto is even more in the balance. A few days after the failure to release blast furnace 1, the one hit by a fire last May, and with a series of open problems, today the Court of Milanruling on an appeal presented years ago by 11 citizens of Taranto against the factory considered harmful and polluting, stopped some environmental requirements dell’AIA.

This is the authorization to operate the plants. The Court did not cancel or cancel the AIA, but only disapplied some provisions, deemed inadequate in the light of the situation, and gave the company time until August 24th to change and improve them. For the judges, the change must provide certainty regarding the execution of the planned interventions. If nothing happens by August 24th, thehot area of the Taranto steelworks will have to stop. Only the modification of the contested environmental requirements, the judges write, can stop the August 24 deadline.

Discussion on layoffs suspended

The decision of the Court of Milan first of all created two effects. The first is that in the afternoon at Ministry of Labour the discussion on the redundancy fund requested by the company for one year from March 1st for 4,450 employees of which 3,800 in Taranto. Discussion suspended as the company first wants to understand the impacts and repercussions of the sentence, which, union sources announce, will probably be challenged. The second effect concerns the negotiation with Flacks Groupthe American fund which is proposing to acquire all of the former Ilva and with which the commissioners are negotiating. Sources close to the dossier fear that Flacks, to whom the sentence will have to be communicated, may now withdraw from the operation, since the picture has changed and the environmental part has become more economically burdensome, and at that point the bridging loan that the EU Commission recently authorized up to a maximum of 390 million for the former Ilva to allow its production continuity in view of the transition to the new buyer.

Alarm among the unions

In alarm the trade union acronyms of the metalworkers. “The decree with which the judges of Milan ordered the suspensionstarting from August 24, 2026dell’productive activity dell’hot area of the factory former Ilva of Taranto for high risk of serious illnessesadds a further element of complication to a dispute that has now dragged on for over a decade without finding a solution”, he comments Ferdinand Ulianogeneral secretary Cisl End. “The first thing that I believe they will have to do as a company will be to appeal the sentence and then understand how to proceed”. In relation to the sentence of the Court of Milan and the possible consequent decisions of the former Ilva”, he adds Guglielmo Gambardellanational secretary Uilm. Loris Scarpa from the Fiom Cgil underlines that “the current procedure they have activated for redundancy fund it seems that it is no longer sufficient to deal with the situation”. While theUSB pushes for “one immediate call by the Governmentwhich must be courageously taken on responsibility to get out of this situation further 18,000 families of employees between Ilva, Ilva in AS and the contract. The situation is getting worse every day and the risk of asocial explosion is upon us.”