No conditions for A.Mittal pullout

(ANSA) - Milan, November 11 - Juridical conditions do not exist for Franco-Indian steel giant ArcelorMittal to pull out of the former ILVA steel group, according to an appeal by the group's three extraordinary commissioners that will be filed this week, sources who have seen the appeal said Monday.
    Meanwhile the filing of the formal act at a Milan court in which ArcelorMittal asks to get out of the ex-ILVA leasing contract was put off until Tuesday, qualified sources told ANSA Monday.
    The measure will then be assigned to a special business section of the Milan court.
    ArcelorMittal has said it needs to pull out citing the lifting of a 'penal shield' protecting a cleanup of the highly polluting Taranto works and the necessity of shedding 5,000 workers across the group, which employs over 8,000 people at Taranto and some 3,000 more at Genoa and Novi Ligure.
    The government is split on restoring the shield with many in the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), led by Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, against providing protection for a plant whose pollution levels have been linked to high local cancer rates in and around Taranto.
    But Premier Giuseppe Conte and the M5S's ruling partner, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), are firmly in favour of bringing the shield back.
    All parties in government, including ex-premier and former PD leader Matteo Renzi's new centrist Italia Viva (IV) party, are against the job cuts.
    There has been talk of the former ILVA group, which was once under state control before passing to the Riva group, being re-nationalised.
    Any solution will have to continue to strike a balance between protecting the health of Tarantans and saving jobs at the sprawling plant, one of the biggest in Europe.