Renewable energies, new businesses and environmental remediation and retraining and training of personnel left ashore after the closure of production plants. All in a game of 1 billion and 211 million financed by the Just Transition Fund, the European Union fund introduced to support the costs of the transition of old industrial areas towards decarbonised production. In Italy, Sulcis in Sardinia and Taranto in Puglia benefit from it. The journey for the use of these resources that have the ambition to reverse the course of an economy that in the two industrial areas has to deal with closures and areas to be reclaimed, albeit slowly, has begun.
The monitoring committee of the national program financed by the EU cohesion policy 2021-2027 has outlined the path to follow to create new jobs. Also defined areas, rules and rewards. 796 million euros will go to Taranto, 367 to Sulcis Iglesiente, while 49 million euros will be used for technical assistance.
Support for the transition of Sulcis
One of the priorities that affects Sulcis Iglesiente, with the so-called “Support for the transition”, concerns the promotion of the use of renewable sources and the creation of energy communities. Measures are also financed “to minimize the environmental impacts related to interventions on energy production and distribution plants, also as regards soil consumption and the project’s ability to contribute to the creation of local production chains”. The possibility of involving vulnerable people in conditions of energy poverty is foreseen. Another strand that concerns the interventions included in the package is that relating to the environmental remediation of sites to be used for new economic activities. This also includes the application of the ‘polluter pays’ principle. Attention is paid to the sites present in the Sin del Sulcis Iglesiente Guspinese.
Hydrogen and green economy
The program also includes support for projects to diversify the local economy, including through the use of the circular economy and the “energy conversion of production processes, hydrogen and renewable energies, innovative solutions linked to the transition process as well as in the field of the green economy, agriculture, sustainable tourism and the sustainable economy of the sea”.
The program also envisages support for up-skilling and re-skilling courses for the unemployed, the unemployed and workers at risk “as a result of the transition”, as well as “investments for technical training and advanced training; strengthening of services for job search and for the creation of a new business; active inclusion of jobseekers”.