At the annual meeting of Federacciai, the Italian iron and steel association, held on May 20 at the headquarters of Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore in Milan, Federacciai president Antonio Gozzi commented on the case of Taranto-based Italian steel producer Ilva.
"Two years of judicial shocks and the wrong attitude by the Italian government has produced the disaster that stands before the eyes of all - that Ilva is going to go bankrupt," Gozzi stated.
He continued by saying, "In addition, the special commissioner for Ilva knows very little about the steel industry." According to Gozzi, a truth evident to all is that without ownership and a normal governance no firm is able to generate the necessary resources for environmental interventions and the revival of production.
"Special commissioner Enrico Bondi, who was appointed by the Italian government in June 2013, instead of proposing unlikely business plans, should have quickly rebuilt the normal business management, trying to put together a credible corporate structure to be entrusted with the drafting of a business plan and the procurement of financial resources and the necessary guarantees to support the plan itself and the actions planned by the Environmental Integrated Authorization (EIA)," Gozzi said. He went on to state that in one year of management by the special commissioner Ilva's production has plummeted; "The company loses between €60 million and €70 million per month, does not pay suppliers, has lost more than €1 billion of its capital and its commercial policies have caused major disruptions in the market, through the sale of coils at extremely low prices in desperate need to obtain liquidity."
"The reconstruction of a credible hypothesis both on an industrial and financial level", noted Gozzi, "will take time and the Italian state will have to accompany the transition process by protecting employment, plant assets and creditors' rights. The state must not substitute itself for private entrepreneurs - it has to be a guardian and facilitator in rebuilding a team capable of reviving Ilva. The state has to require in Taranto the same environmental safeguards that are required by other European steel industries. The state must also have the courage to adopt positions that are different from those of the judges who, with their extreme actions, led to the dramatic situation seen today."
"The coming weeks," the Federacciai president stressed, "will be crucial to understanding, even in this most difficult case, if the government led by Renzi [Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi]has the strength and the ability to make a quantum leap in its action."
In August 2012, Taranto judge Patrizia Todisco ordered a production halt at Ilva due to environmental hazards, following which some 1.7 million mt of finished and semi-finished steel stocks worth between €800 million and €1 billion belonging to Ilva were seized by court order. The Taranto judges also ordered the confiscation of €8.1 billion worth of property and goods belonging to the Riva family in May 2013.
"We have been engaged for two years in a battle of principle in defense of the largest - and probably one of the most efficient - steel plant in Europe; a battle in which very often we were alone and had to fight against ignorance, prejudice, exploitation by those who actually wanted to just close Ilva," Gozzi concluded.