I’ll explain who really killed the former Ilva
The former Ilva factory in Taranto is not just dying due to a production or market crisis; he was also murdered by the Apulian judiciary. Giuliano Cazzola's analysis
The press release from Palazzo Chigi rings like a death knell: "During the meeting at Palazzo Chigi with ArcelorMittal on the former Ilva of Taranto, the Government delegation proposed to the top management of the company the subscription of the share capital increase, equal to 320 million euros, so as to contribute to increasing the participation of the public shareholder Invitalia to 66%, together with what is necessary to guarantee production continuity. The Government has taken note of ArcelorMittal's unavailability to undertake financial and investment commitments, even as a minority shareholder, and has instructed Invitalia to take the consequent decisions, through its legal team".
What will these “consequential decisions” be? The State will be responsible for the entire necessary capital increase. “Hic Rhodus, hic jump.” There are no alternatives. When so many precious resources have been wasted in a financial operation, one is always induced to invest further to save what can be saved, also because what has been used in vain cannot be recovered. The result, however, will be very disappointing: the State will reacquire – through Invitalia – the factories it had sold to the Riva family in 1995, but in worse conditions.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FORMER ILVA
When the Riva family was invited to buy the former Ilva in 1995, the plant was losing 4 billion lire a year. From 1995 to 2012, the new ownership made investments of 4.5 billion euros, of which 1.2 were for environmental measures. These operations were confirmed by a 2019 sentence of the Court of Milan, at first instance and on appeal, in the proceedings for the crime of fraudulent bankruptcy against the Riva brothers (later acquitted). No one has ever been able to prove that the former Ilva violated the environmental protection laws in force at the time. It is high time that, in the interests of justice before all other aspects, the majority that is less blackmailable in terms of environmentalist rhetoric wanted to see clearly in that announced industrial tragedy. Instead of wasting time with a commission of investigation into the management of Covid-19 (which is instrumental for political purposes), a bicameral one should be set up to get to the bottom of the former Ilva case. We also have to tell the truth!
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE TARANTINA JUDICIARY AND THE TRADE UNIONS
The former Ilva plant in Taranto is not dying due to a production or market crisis; it was not a business headed for failure. If we want to give a name to that story we could coin a new type of crime: causing industrial disaster. Because that plant was consciously, premeditatedly and voluntarily murdered by a conspiracy of the Taranto judiciary in complicity – on the mandate of the environmentalist lobbies – and in agreement with well-identified local and national institutions and political forces.
And the unions? They suffered (and partly shared) that criminal plan because they were unable to escape the pillory of the "politically correct" ecologist and to oppose the robes who brazenly brandished that blackmail in contempt of all the measures adopted by the various governments that tried to avoid the catastrophe .
“Safety comes before profit”, thundered Maurizio Landini with his usual self-assurance, in an interview with La Stampa (when had we ever seen a union leader helplessly witness the assassination of a plant and a steel group before?). “We at CGIL have constituted ourselves as a civil party in this process, we have always thought that the safety of workers and citizens comes before profit and the market. And we have always denounced what the Riva company had not done, the responsibility for too many delays and cunning".
The judicial dismantling began in 2012, with a series of incursions by the Taranto prosecutor's office which – paradoxically – in the name of environmental restoration, and in agreement with the political authorities, did everything – after the seizure of the plant and the finished products such as proof of the crime – to also prevent the implementation of the measures adopted from time to time to make production more sustainable (as in the case of covering mineral and fossil parks). A steel plant, like any other production activity, is not capable of transforming itself into an enormous flowering greenhouse, but is required to respect the regulations in force from time to time regarding workplace safety and environmental protection. Industrial production technologies in the EU are established on the basis of health protection objectives identified at European level in agreement with the World Health Organization. But, in establishing these parameters, the environmental recovery objectives cannot fail to be compatible with other needs concerning the different production sectors, such as the problems of depreciation of the plants, of resources to invest, of coordination between the different countries. Above all, production systems need to have precise references to which they can adhere in order to be considered in order.
To understand this fundamental concept, questioned in Taranto, it is enough to remember that in the European automotive industry the change proceeded gradually on the basis of uniform rules which from time to time became not the indicator of absolute safety, but a sustainable standard and progressive to adhere to within a framework of legal certainty, because companies must know how to regulate themselves – in producing and investing – without being victims of powers of attorney that suddenly, with completely discretionary criteria, impose on a steelworks to adopt bizarre technologies, which competing companies are not required to adopt and which still belong to the category of good intentions. The Court of Assizes of Taranto refused to accept this logic. The prosecutor said it explicitly: "But how do we respond to the mother who lost her child that the limits were in order?". It was precisely the sentences inflicted on the former Governor of Puglia Nichi Vendola and on prof. Giorgio Assennato, former director of the Regional Environment Agency, to make clear the arbitrariness that supported the investigations and the Court's sentence. Nichi Vendola, sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison, allegedly implicitly extorted the professor. Sensible to moderate the environmental impact assessment of the plant; but the director was also sentenced to 2 years for aiding and abetting because he denied having received threats from Vendola.
The Council of State also recognized the strategic importance of the steel plant and production, also in view of the Pnrr and the "decarbonization" mission . And he did not hesitate to evaluate the closure of the factory in terms of GDP and employment, especially after it had returned to the orbit of the State (with the resources of the citizens).
THE WAR IN ARCELORMITTAL
The other unclear story concerned the explicit war that was declared at the time against the French-Indian multinational ArcelorMittal which had taken over management. The suppression of the "criminal shield" was certainly not a secondary problem that, in that context, any "manager" of the plants could have done without. “Would someone invest 3.6 billion – denounced, then, a good trade unionist like Marco Bentivogli – in a plant where the hot area is still under judicial seizure? In a plant for which the judiciary has requested the shutdown of the blast furnace? In a structure that must be brought up to standard knowing that during the time it takes to do so, not being able to stop the activity, its managers could be called to answer for crimes resulting from criminal acts relating to previous managements?”.
But to tell the story of the "Taranto massacre" much more would be needed. There will come a day – we hope – when this story will be found in the documents of a “Nuremberg Tribunal” that will shed light on the conspiracy and its protagonists. But where once stood the largest steelworks in Europe, there will now remain a factory capable of employing less than half of the operating workforce in 2012, without considering related industries.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/ex-ilva-responsabilita-magistratura-puglia/ on Sun, 14 Jan 2024 06:32:59 +0000.