Threats to the mayor of Taranto, seized plants and factory almost firm: while in Europe the steel continues to produce, Italy is screwed on itself between justice, environmentalism and political paralysis.
Every now and then, in front of the national problemsI wonder: but abroad as they do? It is the question I asked myself last weekwhen I read that a group of environmentalists practically seized the mayor of Taranto, forcing him to resignationthen come back.
Piero Bitetti was elected two months ago, with the Democratic Party. According to the news published by the local press, the threats were personal, even personal threats, during a meeting in which the plan for the plan for the Decarbonization of Ilva.
A story sixty years long
The story of the greatest Italian steel mill is known. He entered sixty years ago, in the middle of the economic boomwhen the steel was the sword of the country’s growth. Public owned, he passed by hand in 2005, sold to the Riva family, owner of the first Italian steel group.
In 2012, however, the judiciarywho accuses the shores of Environmental and malicious disasterstops the corporate top and seizure the plant. Apparently, from 1965 until the second half of the 2000s no one had ever posed the problem of pollution, of ferrous powdersof the victims of tumor.
For almost fifty years, when the industry was in the hands of the IRI, that is, of the state, everything or almost everything was smooth. Some protests, a little complaints, but the important thing was that Ilva He gave work to 12 thousand employees.
After 2012, uncertainty
But then came the judiciary and what was acceptable until before 2012 was no longer. So, put the Riva and commissioner in jail the factory, we began to discuss how to restore the environment.
The debate has oscillated among those who would like to make the Ilva continue to produce but stopped polluting (or at least would strongly reduce emissions) and whoever would definitively want make those chimneys disappear.
Result: for thirteen years we have followed plans, managers, owners, without glimpse a solution. Last week’s epilogue, with the resignation of a mayor elected two months earlier (even if then the farewell letter was torn), shows that it gropes in the dark.
A factory almost firm
The Minister of Development Adolfo Urso prepared a Program agreementwith the ok to the transformation of the steelworm, which should have three electric ovenswhile for the systems powered with gas it is all postponed to after the summer.
In the meantime the factory is firm or almost: from the laminated one comes out a third of the expected steel, the workers on duty are reduced to a minimum e Thousands of employees are in layoffsthat is, against the community. As will probably be for years if the future of the company will be what environmentalists want, or the definitive closure.
And in the rest of Europe?
Therefore, I go back to the starting question: But in other countries what they do? Since I understand that also in the rest of the union there are steel mills, some bigger than ourshow did they regulate, since to build houses, infrastructures, cars and tanks, is the steel essential?
They have put in prison the administrators And The steel systems closed? Or they found solutions to limit emissions without giving up the production?
The European example
I searched online a study that places in Austria, Germany, France and Holland some of the most important European steel airports, all with emissions higher than those of Ilva.
Still, I don’t know that the Voestalpine Stahl by Linzwho also pollutes double the Ilva, is about to close: he has a program for reset emissions by 2050 And the mayor does not appear to me to have been forced to resign.
The same can be said of the Integrierrtes Hüttenwerke of Duisberg7.76 million tons of greenhouse gases. I could continue, but the substance I think you have it happens.
An Italian Unicum
In the rest of Europe the judiciary does not seize the plants And does not be awarded the municipalities. We are unicum. We are killing one of the strategic sectors of our countryin silence and general indifference. In fact Ilva today produces 30 percent less of what came out of the laminates in the sixties.
The story reminds me a little Protests against regasifiers and incinerators. Exist throughout Europe, but from us they cannot be donebecause there is always a judge or committee that prevents him. And in fact Gas powered plants are not fine.
