Court-ordered shutdown of Taranto steelworks quashed
Acciaierie Italia, the government-controlled company that has taken over the former ILVA steel group, is ready to present a proposal for a “green steel” ecological transition project at its controversial plant at Taranto in Puglia, which has been dogged by cancer-causing pollution woes.
The announcement came after the Council of State, Italy’s highest administrative court, quashed a regional administrative court’s ruling to shut down the plant.
Industry Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti welcomed the ruling saying an industrial project to clean up and boost production, saving jobs, could now move forward.
A court on May 31 sentenced former steel kings Fabio and Nicola Riva to 22 and 20 years in jail respectively for the “environmental disaster’ caused by the then ILVA steelworks in the southern city.
The pair are the former owners and directors of the plant, whose emissions have been linked to high cancer rates in the area.
They were convicted of criminal association to cause an environmental disaster and poisoning of food substances, among other things.
Former Puglia Governor Nichi Vendola was sentenced to a three-year term in relation to the case.
The former ILVA plant was once Europe’s largest steel works and is still the largest employer in southern Italy.