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. 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".
Reacting to ArcelorMittal's statement, the FIM CISL union said Monday 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-buiness decree," said FIM CISL secretary Marco Bentivogli.
Far-right opposition League leader Matteo Salvini called on Premier Giuseppe Conte to "urgently" report to parliament on the case and said the government should quit over its 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."
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