In Italy, the fate of one of the largest steelworks in Europe still pending. This industrial site represents more than 11,000 direct jobs and supports up to 20,000 people in the Puglia region, one of the poorest in the country. But the site is in great difficulty and the buyer ArcelorMittal and the Italian state are unable to agree on how to relaunch the activity.
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The difficulties of the former Ilva, the enormous steelworks in Taranto, are old: the site is extremely polluted, heavily in debt and only two of its five furnaces are still operating.
In 2018, the world number two, the Franco-Indian group ArcelorMittal, bought the site, with the blessing of the Italian authorities keen to preserve employment. Less than a year later, Mittal was already seeking to cancel the sale given the scale of the cleanup work.
Read alsoAgreement between ArcelorMittal and the Italian government for the takeover of Ilva
To convince the group to stay and honor its commitments, the Italian state then took a 38% stake in the capital at the end of 2020. Two years later, Rome even released a billion euros to relaunch the site and initiate its industrial reconversion.
But since then, demand for steel has continued to fall and the ex-Ilva site, on the verge of financial asphyxiation, is unable to pay its subcontractors.
Faced with the impasse in discussions with ArcelorMittal, the Italian government took a first step this week towards placing the steelworks under supervision. A measure that pushed Aditya Mittal, the CEO of the Franco-Indian group, to put pen to paper, in a letter addressed to Giorgia Meloni, the head of the Italian government, he once again proposed selling his shares.