• Ex Ilva, mouths sewn after the summit with the government. ArcelorMittal pulls straight
  • Conte: the government's priority is to revive Ilva and Taranto
  • ArcelorMittal. Government-company meeting at Palazzo Chigi. Workers in Taranto garrison
  • The ArcelorMittal numbers
  • ArcelorMittal, accounts in the red. Total break with the government. Conte convenes the unions

Share

November 07 2019The withdrawal of Arcelor Mittal is "only the last piece of a mosaic of a series of events that over time have seen the involvement in various capacities of all governments and political forces present in Parliament". Thus the Minister of Economic Development, Stefano Patuanelli, speaking in the Chamber in the former Ilva Chamber.
"Knowing some elements - he added - is indispensable for understanding the situation today and evaluating all the actions that will be necessary to give guarantees of production continuity to the plant". The minister then pointed out the choice of Arcelor Mittal: "Despite Acciai Italy has obtained a better assessment on an industrial level and on an environmental level, Arcelor Mittal was a winner for the purchase price offered of 1.8 billion against 1.2 billion".

"Arcelor Mittal is unable to comply with his plan and we do not accept it"
"Arcelor Mittal told us that he is unable to comply with the business plan and consequently employment and this the Italian government cannot accept," the minister said. According to him, the offer for Ilva was not conditioned by the fact that immunity was guaranteed for the entire period of the environmental plan. On the penal shield, in fact, Patuanelli has specified that at the time of the presentation of the binding and unconditional offer, in 2017, Arcelor Mittal had attached a note on the legislation of the criminal offense, "noting that the failure to extend the period of non-punishment until 2023 represented a criticality, and hoping for an extension ". Therefore, the minister continued, "Arcelor Mittal did not condition the offer to the extent of the criminal penalty. He hoped for it, but the offer was unconditional."

Withdrawal provided only with a plan change
"The contract signed with Arcelor Mittal provides for withdrawal only in the event of changes to the environmental plan" and the 2017 Dpcm was not affected in any way "by the latest legislative changes, reiterated Patuanelli." The right of withdrawal - he said - follows exclusively by measures that lead to the total or partial cancellation of the environmental plan, such as to render the industrial plan no longer feasible ". And on future scenarios he added:" Talking about Ilva does not mean talking only about an industrial plant, but a vision industrial sector. Steel production must be central, the Government speaks with one voice. Thinking about the closure of the Ilva plant has immediate repercussions on the Taranto area, on the induced, but also on all Italian productive sectors. Thinking of not having an internal steel production means not having a business plan for the country ".

Tomorrow strike in all establishments
Meanwhile, Fim Fiom and Uilm have proclaimed a 24-hour strike for the entire Arcelor Mittal Group ex Ilva starting at 7 am on Friday 8 November 2019, already scheduled for the Taranto site. In all the other establishments, the territorial secretariats will define the modalities of mobilization. The national trade unions state "intolerable what emerged from yesterday's meeting between the President of the Council and the top management of ArcelorMittal, scheduled to ask for the withdrawal of the disengagement procedure from the former Ilva facilities announced on November 4th".

Conte convenes the unions
Conte convened the metalworkers' unions at Palazzo Chigi at 5.30 pm to discuss the situation of the former Ilva. Then the general secretaries Francesca Re David (Fiom Cgil), Marco Bentivogli (Fim Cisl) and Rocco Palombella (Uilm) are expected. Local authorities are also expected. The prime minister, who spoke of a "red alert", invited the top management to take a couple of days to come up with a sustainable proposal, and announced that this afternoon will open a crisis table to which the president of the Puglia region will also be invited , Michele Emiliano and the mayor of Taranto, Rinaldo Melucci.

Landini: "No responsibility for who was there before"
"You cannot say that the one who arrives is responsible for the disasters that did what came before you". Thus the general secretary of the CGIL, Maurizio Landini, speaking of the question of the criminal shield for Arcelor Mittal at the International Forum of the CGIL in progress in Pistoia. "The responsibility - said Landini - should be given for what is done or not done. Moreover, the shield was not invented for ArcelorMittal. The commissioners who managed Ilva for years had the shield". Then he added: "As was done for the commissioners who have been managing Ilva for years, the shield must be valid for those who arrive".

Cisl: "We cannot lose any job"
The Ilva affair is a clear reflection of how the themes of business and work in this country become a political battleground within the government, between the majority and the opposition ". The Deputy Secretary-General of CISL said this today to" Uno Mattina " , Luigi Sbarra, on the story of the former Ilva. "The country has lost the compass of industrial politics. The attitude of Arcelor Mittal is completely unacceptable and cynical: less than a year after the signing of the agreement that gave rise to the industrial plan for the former Ilva which relaunched and ensured quantity and production capacity, defense of employment and investments for the environmentalization and the safety of the plants, today it is completely retracted even ventilating the hypothesis
of 5000 redundancies which are really unacceptable for us. We cannot lose any jobs.

Uilm: "Taranto plant will stop by itself"
"The establishment will inevitably go to the stop, it will stop by itself". The secretary Uilm Taranto, Antonio Talò, declares this to Agi. "ArcelorMittal - adds Talò - has blocked companies, has stopped orders, stopped supplies, even those of minerals, it is clear that in this situation there is now a countdown towards the stop".

ArcelorMittal confirms: "Impossible to implement industrial plan"
The farewell to the former Ilva by AM InvestCo Italy is explained by "the impossibility to implement the industrial plan, to manage the Taranto plant and in general to implement the agreement" signed last year with the Commissioners of the 'ex Ilva. Thus ArcelorMittal in the note on the group's accounts ('red' of 539 million in the third quarter) summarizes for investors the decision announced at the beginning of the week. The note highlights the risk of closing the blast furnace 2 which could extend to the other two plants present in Taranto. ArcelorMittal expects to continue to consolidate AM InvestCo until the control of the activities will be transferred to the former Ilva Commissioners concludes the chapter of the statement on the accounts dedicated to the Italian affair.

Paita: amendment to reinstate the penal shield
The deputy of Italia Viva, Raffaella Paita, has filed an amendment to the fiscal decree to restore the penal shield for the former Ilva of Taranto. The proposed amendment provides for the suppression of the part that refers to the "criminal or administrative responsibility of the extraordinary commissioner and of the subjects that he functionally delegates" in environmental and health protection and public safety and occupational safety matters. The rule also applies to "conduct carried out from 3 November 2019 on the expiry date of the implementation of the Environmental Plan" without prejudice to "the principles established by the constitutional jurisprudence concerning the protection of workers' health and safety".