Use the funds of the Recovery Fund for a productive-ecological conversion focused on green investments in the South, starting from the former Ilva di Taranto. It is the proposal of SVIMEZ presented yesterday during the hearings in the EU Budget and Policies committees. According to the data released by the Institute, the closure of the largest factory in the South would cause, considering the direct, indirect and induced effects, an impact on the Italian GDP of 3,5 billion euros, of which 2,6 billion concentrated in the South and remaining 0,9 billion in the Center-North.
A negative impact would have above all on exports (-2,2 billion) but also on household consumption (-1,4 billion), considering the significant impact of the loss of salaries of the plant's employees, direct related activities and employment rates of the economic slowdown. The Tar of Lecce, ten days ago, he ordered the closure of the hot area due to a risk to the health of Taranto.
At risk there are 10 thousand jobs, without calculating the related activities. "It is believed - reads the Svimez report - that the strategic nature of the plant for the entire Italian steel industry and for the industrial prospect of the South requires the utmost effort, including financial, to guarantee an environmentally sustainable solution. European resources, together with the direct participation of public entities, can be mobilized to accompany that process of eco-conversion of the plant that can ensure production continuity, in safety. Avoiding the risk of abandonment with enormous economic and social costs, which would replicate the unsuccessful experience of infinite reclamation as occurred in other areas of the South, such as Bagnoli ».
Arcelor Mitta, who in the meantime has appealed to the Council of State, has less than 60 days to shut down the plants in the hot steel area of Taranto because it is "public health at risk ". The decision that could change the history of the former Ilva was taken by the TAR of Lecce 10 days ago, the judges rejected the appeals proposed by ArcelorMittal and Ilva in As against the order number 15 of 2020, signed by the mayor of Taranto Rinaldo Melucci, which required the managers to identify and overcome the critical issues deriving from emission phenomena of the steel plant, providing, in default, the shutdown of the hot area.
The effects of the trade union ordinance had been suspended on 24 April 2020 in acceptance of the requests of ArcelorMittal and Ilva in As with two twin measures, later combined, which provided for a series of investigative acts to be completed by last 7 October. The term for "Proceed with further investigations and checks in order to preliminarily identify operating anomalies", underlines the TAR, must be considered "Now irretrievably over".
From the findings acquired "with the preliminary investigation - is pointed out in the sentence - it is also clear that these criticalities and anomalies can be considered solved only minimally and that, vice versa, the risk conditions of the repetition of such serious emission events remain abstractly, which certainly cannot be said to be episodic, random and isolated ". It must "therefore be considered fully subsistent", the judges point out, "the situation of serious danger for the health of citizens, connected by the probable risk of repetition of emission phenomena that are somehow out of control and more and more frequent, perhaps also due to the age of the technological production systems ».
Returning to Svimez's report on Recovery, according to the institute the National Plan "approved by the previous Executive last January 12, currently being examined by Parliament, while presenting appreciable improvements compared to the previous draft, it does not present a clear vision on the contribution that the South can give to the reconstruction of the country ".
