One of the main blast furnaces
at the former ILVA steelworks in Taranto was kept open after a
court upheld an appeal from the firm's commissioners on Tuesday.
Blast furnace 2 (AFO2) will keep operating after the court of
re-examination quashed an early ruling that rejected a suit to
keep it going.
The commissioners voiced "great satisfaction" at the ruling.
They said they had always had faith in justice.
AFO2 was first sequestered in June 2015 after an accident
killed 35-year-old worker Alessandro Morricella, who was hit by
a stream of molten iron.
The former ILVA works at Taranto, Europe's largest, recently
returned to extraordinary administration after ArcelorMittal
tried to get out of a deal to run it.
The Franco-Indian steel group, the world's biggest, cited the
lifting of a 'penal shield' protecting buyers from legal action
over an environmental clean-up at the highly polluting plant.
Emissions from the Taranto works have been linked to higher
than usual rates of some forms of cancer among the Puglia city's
population, especially children.
The government says it is determined to keep Taranto, and
other plants near Genoa, running to avert a devastating blow to
the national economy.
The possibility of State intervention has been aired, despite
the European Union's strict rules against State aid for
industry.
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