Former Ilva, ninety days to halt the hot area and a government without a rule ready

The measure is clear-cut and has a deadline: ninety days to halt production in the hot area of the former Ilva plant in Taranto. The Milan Court of Appeal’s decree orders the suspension of production activity, with the term running from the last notification of the measure to the companies involved — Ilva spa, Acciaierie d’Italia spa and Acciaierie d’Italia Holding spa, all under extraordinary administration. A de facto shutdown, then, by autumn, unless something changes the framework.

The point of maximum tension is indicated by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers itself: the plants affected by the measure employ the majority of Acciaierie d’Italia’s workers. This is not, therefore, a marginal department of the plant, but the core that sustains employment at the site. And the decree, again according to Palazzo Chigi, arrived at a stage when the formalization of the agreement to sell the entire complex to a steel operator was close: the suspension intervenes while the ownership matter was being closed, neither before nor after.

The institutional reaction was swift in convening the meeting, slower in substance. Ministers Calderone, Foti, Giorgetti, Pichetto Fratin and Urso met at Palazzo Chigi, together with undersecretaries Mantovano and Fazzolari. It is a table that brings together labor, cohesion, economy, environment and enterprise: the composition shows how cross-cutting the dossier is, and also shows that none of the competencies involved, on its own, resolves the knot. No measure already drafted has emerged from the meeting.

On the ground, the request is instead explicit and concerns above all what lies downstream of the plant. Confindustria Taranto, Confapi Taranto, Aigi, Confartigianato and Federmanager have asked the government for urgent regulatory action for the supply chain: the businesses that work for the steelworks and that, in the event of a shutdown, would find themselves without a client and without time to reorganize. The Permanent Table for Taranto, which brings together the province’s employer associations, warns that a closure of the hot area “would jeopardize the entire plant and put jobs and supply chains at risk.”

This is the formulation that explains what is at stake: not the suspension of one process, but the survival of the plant as a whole and of the supply chains revolving around it. A hot area that is shut down is not a switch that turns back on: it is the technical precondition for everything that happens downstream.

The government has already brought the matter into an emergency measure. The Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti presented at a press conference a decree-law concerning petroleum product prices and ILVA S.p.a. under extraordinary administration: two heterogeneous matters within the same legislative vehicle, following a practice that speeds up parliamentary timing while complicating the readability of the text. On this point, the news currently comes from a single source (notes from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers); no independent confirmation is available.

The two questions that really matter remain outside the verifiable picture. The first: what legal instrument the government intends to use to affect the effects of the decree, and with what margin. The second: whether and how the sale to a steel operator can be formalized while a production suspension is pending on the main plant — a buyer acquires production capacity, and production capacity is exactly what the measure suspends.

The calendar, for now, is the only certain fact. The ninety days run from the last notification of the decree to the three companies under extraordinary administration. Within that deadline, either a rule exists that changes the framework, or the hot area of Taranto shuts down.

Sources: Governo.it — Palazzo Chigi note; TarantoToday; Sbircia la Notizia; Corriere di Taranto; Governo.it — news.