The former Ilva, now renamed Acciaierie d’Italia after Invitalia’s entry into the capital, will have more time to cover the conveyor belts of the Taranto plant. With an order, the Lazio TAR has in fact accepted the company’s appeal against a decree of the Ministry of the Environment last September which had set the completion of the coverage of the tapes at the end of April 2021. This is one of the requirements of the Integrated Environmental Authorization, whose purpose is to avoid the dispersion of dust during the transport of minerals from the storage parks (where they are deposited) to the plants to be used in the steel production cycle. For the same reason, the two large mineral parks were also covered.
The ongoing legal battles
The outcome at the Lazio TAR is one of the many chapters of the legal battle that has inflamed the former Ilva for many years. The next deadline – unless postponed – is the Council of State which on May 13 will have to express itself on the sentence of the Lecce TAR which, on February 13, had confirmed the order of the mayor of Taranto, Rinaldo Melucci. The latter, in February 2020, ordered the shutdown of the plants deemed polluting in 60 days. The sentence of the Lecce TAR was suspended in March by the judges of Palazzo Spada pending the judgment on the merits. Against the Tar ruling, I am ArcelorMittal, Ilva in extraordinary administration, Invitalia and the Ministry of Ecological Transition (formerly Environment). For the maintenance of the sentence, however, the Puglia Region, the Municipality of Taranto and Codacons.
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The judges: unrealistic deadline
Regarding the end-of-month deadline, the Lazio TAR, based on the documents produced by ArcelorMittal Italia on 19 April, highlights “The existence of impediments in the supplies and execution of the works that lead to believe that compliance with the deadline of 30 April 2021 is currently unrealistic ‘. For the administrative judges of the second section bis, “the deemed possibility of respecting the deadline of 30 April 2021 is affirmed by the decree”, meaning the ministerial decree, “without evident preliminary support – and without the same being better specified in the defense of the ” Administration in court – only on the basis of the “lesser complexity” of the operations and the acceleration of the same with respect to the time schedule. These elements – says the Lazio TAR – which however ignore – without reason – the very different operational framework that was sanctioned in the service conferences ». The judges also write that “the maintenance of the effects of the decree, with regard to the deadline of 30 April 2021, does not ensure the substantial effect of completing the coverage of the tapes within the same period of time, nor that of accelerating the outcome with respect to the timing of the schedule of the conference of services “.
The paradox
Indeed, for the judges, “the serious risk must be considered that, due to the modalities and timing of its provision, the prescription under discussion, altering the operational program in progress, itself jeopardizes the acceleration of the times already in place compared to the time schedule, with the paradox that the contested decree would end up realizing the harm it wanted to prevent ». In light of this, observes the Lazio TAR, “in balancing the interests it is therefore necessary to suspend the effects of the contested decree limited to the prescription in question, without prejudice to the obligation for the appellant to ensure, pending, every effort to complete the roofing works in the shortest time due according to diligence and good faith, in any case not later than the terms and with the methods set out in the services conference of 16 December 2020 ».
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ArcelorMittal Italia had immediately challenged the decree of September 2020 of the Ministry of the Environment, so much so that the trial before the Lazio TAR began the following month. The ministry has reformulated the timing because ArcelorMittal, having passed the final deadline for works initially set in May 2020, asked for an extension of 14 months, motivating them with the construction block due to Covid. The new dates of the ministry, however, were contested by the company which considered them technically unrealistic: the completion in January 2021 of conveyor belts and towers at high altitude and in April 2021 of all the coverage.