Ex Ilva, bridge loan of 680 million at the launch of the Council of Ministers

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The dossier on the former Ilva also enters the Council of Ministers convened at 6 pm. In fact, the agenda includes an “information from the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy on the agreement to strengthen the production capital of Acciaierie d’Italia” and the decree law Urgent measures for plants of national strategic interest, with which, according to what we learn, we intervene on the steel pole of Taranto. Also on the executive table is the decree-law Urgent provisions for the management of migratory flows and procedural simplification in matters of immigration, regional laws and any other miscellaneous.

«From the advances and news reported by press agencies it seems that the Council of Ministers is oriented towards granting a bridging loan of 680 million euros to Acciaierie d’Italia with the reintroduction of the penal shield. The debt exposure to large suppliers (Eni/Snam) and associated companies, the Group’s liquidity crisis are such that the loan risks lasting the space of one morning». This was stated in a note by Gianni Venturi, national manager of the steel industry for Fiom-Cgil. «Furthermore, the conduct of recent months – observes the exponent of Fiom – the unilateral and pre-bankruptcy management of Acciaierie d’Italia poses a theme of guarantees and reliability that should have been resolved by anticipating the 2024 deadline and immediately acquiring , majority control of the group. What will be the guarantees from Acciaierie d’Italia? What are the industrial and employment prospects, the production recovery and the return from layoffs for over 3,000 workers and the 1,600 of former Ilva under extraordinary administration?»

Demonstration on January 11th

The trade unions Fiom Cgil, Uilm and Usb together with the regional governor of Puglia, Michele Emiliano, the mayor of Taranto, Rinaldo Melucci, made the decision to demonstrate in Rome on 11 January near Palazzo Chigi to ask for a clear change of pace in the management of the Acciaierie d’Italia dossier.

Three thousand cashiers out of 10 thousand

The company is about to close the 2022 production balance with around 3 million tons, a figure close to 2020, when there was the peak of Covid and the economy was at a standstill, and very far from the 5.7 million that should have constitute the goal. In mid-November and until mid-January, orders from 145 related companies were suspended. In addition, one blast furnace out of three operating has been shut down since July, other plants have also been shut down, and since March, for a year, around 3,000 out of 10,000 workers in the group have been on extraordinary layoffs. Cassa that with the various modalities in Taranto began in July 2019 and has never stopped. And tomorrow the shareholders’ meeting will be convened for the eighth time since November 25, after all the previous sessions have recorded nothing.

Guarantees to the community

“We are of the opinion that a certain approach cannot be perpetrated by the State which finances non-repayable funds, without a guarantee on the prospects for workers and for the city”, said the mayor of Taranto Rinaldo Melucci on Acciaierie d’Italia. “I believe – he added – that so far the private entity has not given any guarantee either to the city, or to the workers, or fulfilled, from our point of view, the things that it had to in some way ensure to the community”.