The Sun (thanks to Bricco) illuminates the black hole of the former Ilva
Wonderful analysis by Paolo Bricco for Il Sole 24 Ore on the former Ilva case. Francis Walsingham's letter
Dear director,
I appreciate the fact that you appreciate tasty proposals for articles and fuzzy letters, and I understand your desire – and sometimes even your anxiety – not to make your readers feel sad (as you often repeat on the basis of what Vittorio Feltri told you at Borghese when you were a youngster, I you said some time ago if I remember correctly) and therefore to propose contents (I know the word horrifies you but you still have to adapt to modern times like I'm doing) that are original, non-trivial and perhaps not present in the Italian press.
I agree. But allow me to make an exception today, given that you have convinced me to read Italian newspapers after decades in which I almost only read American, British and French newspapers for work.
The exception is offered to me by Il Sole 24 Ore . I dove into the articles that the Confindustria newspaper dedicated to the former Ilva case today. An issue that since I have not followed since the beginning I have always struggled to understand the connections, implications, real state of the art, not to mention the countless interventions of the judiciary.
Every time in recent months I read news articles in Italian newspapers I was on the one hand eager to understand and on the other hand, at the end of the pieces, I was disappointed for having understood little or nothing.
Well, today, however, thanks to an analysis by Paolo Bricco – who in fact you have been recommending me to read for some time, even though he writes little and perhaps not due to his apathy but due to the indifference of the newspaper's leaders – everything is clear to me.
In just one article we understand the genesis, problems, messes and scenarios. Through you I would like to thank Bricco for this meritorious work.
The incipit already explains the state of the art:
The former Ilva disaster is the result of the worst of the possible combinations: the short-sightedness of the Italian political ruling class, the moral irresponsibility and prevalence of corporate interest over everything of Arcelor Mittal, the legislative blindness of the European policies conceived in Brussels and, closing the circle, the inability of our governments to handle complex problems, almost as if "the Italian government" was an institutional form marked by an aphasic and structural incomprehension towards the great industrial nodes of our time.
Then in a few lines he arranges the French-Indian giant:
Arcelor Mittal arrives in Taranto in 2018 to produce steel. The dark legends of an operation conceived from the beginning to sabotage a competitor are not true. The manager sent by the Mittal family, Matthieu Jehl, leads a team made up, above all, of factory technicians and managers selected by the leading international steel manufacturer in its factories.
Then he moves on to politics and I finally understand the Grillini disaster on this dossier too:
The problem arises in 2019. The second Conte government, in particular in its Five Star component whose frontman is Luigi Di Maio, who at the Ministry of Economic Development and Labor had already been among the main advocates of the end of poverty in Italy with the citizen's income, does a simple but devastating thing: it essentially nullifies the part of Arcelor Mittal's contract which provided for the so-called criminal shield, i.e. the certainty that the Indian steel group – which took over from the Riva family and the state commissioners – will not must pay criminally for mistakes made first by others.
And what does the French-Indian group do?
Arcelor Mittal, changes strategy. He remains in Italy. But, gradually and inexorably, he disengages. The leaders of the former Ilva change. Jehl leaves the country in the fall of 2019, in October. In the winter of 2020, in January and February, Arcelor Mittal recalls its foreign technicians and administrators to its other steelworks in the rest of the world. And, above all, in 2021 he makes a choice never seen before in international capitalism: he deconsolidates his subsidiary from the balance sheet, reduces any synergy between Viale Certosa – the company's headquarters in Milan – and the offices in London and Luxembourg that deal with finance and of strategy, transforming the former Ilva into a monad with a minimal level of exchange with the rest of the group, almost a cellular body in its own right around which the Mittals tighten a sort of sanitary cordon. Furthermore, its one hundred percent subsidiary operates in Italy and competes on the market with its other subsidiary, Acciaierie d'Italia, at 62 percent.
Bricco also does not hesitate to stigmatize the role of the EU.
In Europe, the Commission adds another cold current to the perfect storm scenario. The ultra-regulatory protectionism of the new border tax on steel and aluminum imports has a boomerang effect. Because it increases the costs of European producers who must also make products, in part, by processing and reprocessing imported raw materials and steel components. Therefore, making steel in Europe is and will always be more expensive. And it will be increasingly expensive also due to the super stringent policies set by the ETS, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, which can reach – according to Eurofer estimates – an extra cost of 200 million euros per million tonnes produced in the blast furnace.
But the faults of Brussels must not distract from those of Rome, Bricco points out:
The former Ilva has been a huge problem since the arrest of Emilio Riva and his collaborators in the summer of 2012. Italy has always been unfamiliar with managing bombs ready to explode at any moment. With the former Ilva it didn't go any better. When the second Conte government rewrote the contract with Arcelor Mittal by including the public vehicle Invitalia in the capital, it was immediately understood that the new agreement was entirely in favor of the private partner. Public power has never had an adequate and continuous flow of information. Nor did it share the governance, despite the not insignificant 38% share of capital. And, above all, he has never shown a real interest – a real ability to grasp the dynamics – industrial, even before financial. Not much has changed with the government presided over by Mario Draghi, not exactly a lover of heavier techno-manufacturing and globalization in its factory versions.
Thank you, Paolo Bricco.
And best regards to you, director.
Francis Walsingham
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/ex-ilva-commento-paolo-bricco/ on Thu, 07 Dec 2023 08:09:00 +0000.