the maxi green project for the former Ilva of Taranto- Corriere.it is in the balance
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As the weeks go by, a reason emerges that leads the government to take time before proposing a revision of the Pnrr: not only do the new projects to be included in the National Recovery Plan count, but also the old ones that should leave to make room to the former. The government does not rule out the possibility that the revision proposal, expected by 31 August, concerns more than 10% of investments and therefore over twenty billion euros. The impact will probably be less in the end, but the rewriting of the Plan will make some losers. It is no coincidence that the entire process is shrouded in secrecy: no person involved wants to be downgraded to the use of traditional European funds, which risk implying different administrative processes and new delays.
Those expelled from the Pnrr
The names of the losers – those expelled from the Pnrr – will dominate the confrontation in Italy from September. Also for this reason, for example, the National Association of Italian Municipalities has made it known that 91% of the tenders of the Plan that concern it have already been awarded: the – implicit – message is that the Minister for European Affairs Raffaele Fitto would have no reason to hit the mayors, because their projects proceed on time. It therefore remains to be understood where the ax will fall and at least one candidate is emerging today: the government today does not rule out cutting the one billion funding from the Pnrr for new plants, fueled by methane or hydrogen, for the production of “green” steel in Tarentum. From executive circles it is observed that an evaluation is underway and that the seizure of part of the plants – in reality, only the old hot production area – certainly does not simplify the picture.
Environmental impact authorisation
The hypothesis under study envisages shifting the financing of the clean steel project to the European development and cohesion fund, ie traditional aid from Brussels. The mayor of Taranto Rinaldo Melucci (Pd) does not agree and is definitely alarmed: If we lose the billion euro of the Pnrr destined for the decarbonisation of the former Ilva – he says – the entire factory is destined to close down». As for him, he has already written to Enterprise Minister Adolfo Urso and Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin to warn that, without Pnrr, he will not renew the environmental impact authorization of the Taranto plants in August. “Without the fastest possible conversion to green production, we will no longer be able to keep the plants open in the coming years: they are now obsolete”.
The production of steel
The stakes are colossal for the country. In Taranto alone, Acciaierie d’Italia has a production capacity of ten million tons of steel a year, almost half of Italy’s production which is still insufficient for the country’s industrial demand. In Europe and probably also in Italy, the production of steel alone is therefore responsible for 5% of greenhouse emissions the billion of the Pnrr destined for the former Ilva is the largest decarbonization project ever seen in Italy: by far the one with the greatest impact. The further decline and closure of the plants would then have economic and social consequences that are impossible to underestimate. In Taranto, the former Ilva employs 12,500 people, to which must be added over a thousand of the old extraordinary administration and many thousands of related industries. Without those plants, Italy would slide into such a deep foreign trade deficit, on a strategic material such as steel, that it has no comparison with any other industrial economy.
Tenders and projects
Time to decide is now tight. The tenders for “green” plants have been launched some time ago by Dri d’Italia, the company of the Ministry of Economy (through Invitalia) which a law of November 2022 recognizes as the implementing body of the Pnrr for the decarbonisation of the energy cycle. steel. The suppliers in the running are Fiulana Danieli and the German Paul Wurth, only two industrial suppliers in the world of this technology. The award is expected at the beginning of August, but for now the actor who collaborates least on the project is Acciaierie d’Italia itself: ArcelorMittal, the controlling shareholder at 62% (with Invitalia at 32%), continues to raise obstacles to decarbonisation of Taranto.
The transfer to ordinary European funds
Mayor Melucci accuses: «ArcelorMittal behaves like a speculator: it absorbs all the Italian subsidies it can obtain, but aims to reduce Taranto’s production as much as possible to keep up the steel price of its other European plants». Certainly no summons of the Indian controlling shareholders to Palazzo Chigi is known, nor is there any plan to place them in the minority in the group. The project to transfer the decarbonization plan also appears to be uphill on ordinary European funds. In the first place, the – indispensable – consensus of the Puglia region is lacking. Furthermore, with the Pnrr Taranto would have new plants as early as 2026, while a postponement of the tenders would cause the project to slide forward by many years because the waiting lists for supplies from Danieli and Paul Wurth are very long, with questions from all over the world . So the idea of changing the Pnrr, to make it more efficient, turns out to be easier every day on paper than in reality.
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