Calenda convenes new ILVA talks (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, December 5 - Industry Minister Carlo Calenda held a surprise meeting with the mayor of the Puglia port city of Taranto Rinaldo Melucci on Tuesday and convened new negotiations on the troubled ILVA steel plant based on the local administrator's requests. The meeting came the day after Calenda reiterated his call for Puglia Governor Michele Emiliano to withdraw the region's legal challenge to a decree modifying the environmental cleanup plan for Europe's largest steelworks, which is undergoing a painful restructuring.
    Assessment of the health damage caused by the plant, which has been linked to higher than average local cancer rates, and an analysis of the decree with a view to making improvements, will also be on the agenda. Emiliano criticised the minister's lack of institutional 'correctness' in relation to Tuesday's meeting.
    However, he also said he was open to an 'unprejudiced' negotiation and to withdrawing the legal challenge to the decree lodged by the Puglia Region and Taranto city council with the Lecce regional administrative court 'in the event of a positive outcome' to the talks.