Claudio Riva said Friday that his
company's management will respond Monday to ILVA Special
Commissioner Enrico Bondi, who raised industrial and
environmental concerns of the giant steel plant on Friday.
The pair met in Milan to discuss the company's business
plan and "exchanged mutual information," Riva, whose family owns
the troubled steel plant in southern Italy, said later.
But if ILVA is ultimately forced to close, that action
would threaten the steel industry in Italy, he warned.
"Without a future for ILVA, I think there is little future
for Italy in the steel industry," said Riva, son of company
founder Emilio Riva who died in April.
The Riva empire includes the troubled ILVA plant, one of
the largest steelworks in Europe.
The ILVA plant has been at the centre of controversy for
years over serious health concerns, culminating in a Save ILVA
plan by the government more than one year ago that set out
measures to help the plant survive and preserve as many as
20,000 jobs during environmental clean-up.
Part of the Taranto plant was seized by judges to cover
some of the costs of cleaning it up and meeting damage claims
related to high levels of cancer in the area.
The appointment of Bondi as special commissioner to oversee
management and clean-up of ILVA was part of that plan.
On Friday, Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti said the
Italian government "has clear ideas" for ILVA.
"We already have approved the environmental plan: we will
do everything to carry it out," Galletti said in Florence.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Taranto said Friday they are
investigating concerns that carpenters working at the plant have
suffered incidents of thyroid cancer .
That announcement came as a Taranto court on Friday found
23 former ILVA managers guilty in connection with a wave of
asbestos and other carcinogen-linked deaths in the southern
Italian port city.
The longest terms were handed down on former execs of
State-owned Italsider, Ilva's precursor, including nine years
for former plant chief Giovanbattista Spallanzani.
Italsider and Ilva have long been accused of causing the
suspiciously high cancer death rate in the Puglia port.
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