Arcelor Mittal said Monday it was
pulling out of ILVA prompting the government to say it would not
let it do so.
AM InvestCo Italy, parent of the ArcelorMittal steel group,
on Monday notified ILVA's extraordinary commissioners of its
desire "to rescind an accord to lease with acquisition the
assets of the Italian steel group and some units acquired
according to a deal sealed on October 31," according to a
statement from the multinational
The Franco-Spanish-Indian group, the world's biggest steel
producer, said it had "asked the extraordinary commissioners to
take on the responsibility of the assets of ILVA and its
employees within 30 days from the reception of the
communication" of ArcelorMittal's desire to leave ILVA and its
troubled plant at Taranto, the largest in Europe employing over
10,000 people.
But the government said it will not let ILVA close.
Industry ministry sources said during a summit between
Industry Minister Stefano Patuanelli, Minister for the South
Giuseppe Provenzano, Labour Minister Nunzia Catalfo, Health
Minister Roberto Speranza, Environment Minister Sergio Costa and
representatives of the economy ministry on Monday that "there
are no juridical premises for rescinding the contract".
"We will summon Mittal immediately".
Premier Giuseppe Conte went on to host a summit with those
ministers, plus Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri, at the
premier's office.
Sources said he would summon ArcelorMittal chiefs to the
premier's office on Tuesday afternoon.
Conte said "for this government the #ILVA issue has top
priority. Already tomorrow afternoon I have called to the
premier's office the heads of ArcelorMittal. We will do all we
can to safeguard productive investments and employment levels
and to continue the environmental plan".
Patuanelli said after the summit with Conte "we will not
allow the closure of the plant. The question of the penal shield
is a pretext, an alibi to hide another problem".
He said there was no "right of recession" and it was "clear
that the governance is not working".
The contract between the steel group and the commissioners, a
revised version of which was filed in Milan in September,
foresees a rescission clause for the "renter" of the Taranto
plant, according to a copy of the text seen by ANSA.
This is envisaged if a law "makes it impossible to run the
Taranto plant" or makes the industrial plan "impossible to
realise".
Earlier this month the government's save-business decree
removed a so-called "penal shield" protecting ILVA.
The Taranto plant, whose pollution had been linked to high
local cancer rates, was being cleaned up and turned around with
government help.
But the lifting of the shield put that operation at risk.
A.Mittal said in its statement that the elimination of the
"legal protection" since November 3, "necessary to the company
to implement its environmental plan without the risk of penal
responsibility," was the main reason for the pullout.
"In addition," it said "the measures taken by the Taranto
penal court oblige ILVA's extraordinary commissioners to
complete these prescriptions by December 13 2019 or see blast
furnace number 2 turned off".
This, it said, would "make it impossible to implement the
industrial plan, and, in general, to execute the contract".
Arcelor Mittal Italia President and CEO Lucia Morselli said
"it is not possible to manage the plant without these
protections needed to execute the environmental plan,
definitively removed yesterday with the failure to convert into
law the relevant decree."
She said in a letter to workers that "it is not possible to
expose employees and collaborators to potential penal action".
Morselli said "it will be necessary to implement a plan of
well-ordered suspension of all the productive activities
starting from the hot area of the Taranto plant, which is the
most exposed to the risks deriving from the absence of legal
protections.
"Also the activities of all the other departments and
operational areas will be progressively suspended with the aim
of maintaining all the plant in efficiency and ready for a
productive restart".
Reacting to ArcelorMittal's statement, the FIM CISL union
said that the government had achieved "a masterpiece of
incompetence and political cowardice.
"Not defusing an environmental bomb, but rather combining it
with a social bomb is due to the mess made with the
save-business decree," said FIM CISL secretary Marco Bentivogli.
Rightwing opposition League leader Matteo Salvini called on
Premier Conte to "urgently" report to parliament on the case and
said the government should quit over its alleged failure to
protect jobs.
"If the government of taxes, migrant landings and handcuffs
(for big tax evaders) also chases off the owners of ILVA,
putting at risk the jobs of tens of thousands of workers and the
country's industrial future, it will be a disaster, and
resignation would be the only possible response."
He said that "if the government does not report to parliament
we will block parliamentary work".
Salvini called Conte "the worst enemy of the south".
The ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) urged Conte to
"immediately summon Arcelor Mittal", voicing "all our concern
and dismay at the company's announcement it is pulling out."
It said "there can be no fooling around with workers and the
environment: we demand seriousness and respect".
PD Senate Whip Andrea Marcucci accused Salvini of being
"forgetful because it was his government that lifted the penal
shield on ex-ILVA with its growth decree".
The federation of Italian industry, Confindustria, said "the
announced withdrawal of ArcelorMittal from the ex-ILVA plant
will have negative effects on the city of Taranto and on the
economy of the whole country with particular impact on
employment."
It said it "hopes that the conditions can be created to
reopen talks with the company aimed at keeping steel production
in Taranto."
The federation of Italian steel firms, Federacciai, said "the
consequences for ancillary firms would be enormous, exposing all
ever more to the dynamics of imports, but they would also be
heavy for the Italian steel industry as a whole which is, let's
recall, the second biggest in Europe and the 10th biggest in the
world".
It added: "what we had feared has sadly happened: changing
the rules of the game during the game could only lead to a
bust-up".
Engineering group Federmeccanica said "this is the worst of
all possible situations".
Taranto Archbishop monsignor Filippo Santoro said the steel
group's pullout would cause a "social disaster".
Codacons consumer group, which has launched several
initiatives in favour of the pollution-hit Taranto population,
said the procedure for the definitive closure of the sprawling
works should be opened.
Puglia Governor Michele Emiliano, of the PD, said the Taranto
plant "kills citizens and workers" and "is totally illegal as
shown by the very same management of ArcelorMittal which without
a special penal immunity, which existed in Europe only for them
and which is not permitted for another other company, intimates
with arrogance to the Italian State to take back its factory
within 30 days."
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