"What we feared unfortunately happened: that changing the rules in the middle of the game could break the bank", said Antonio Banzato, president of Italian steelmakers' association Federacciai, commenting on ArcelorMittal's intention to terminate the purchase agreement for the Ilva steel works in the southern Italy city of Taranto.
"Everyone now is rightly worried about the social problem that may arise, and... the enormous industrial problem that would be subsequent to the closure of the Taranto plant."
"The consequences for the supply chain would be enormous, exposing everyone more and more to the dynamics of imports. The consequences would also be severe for the Italian steel industry as a whole, which is, let's remember, the second in Europe and the tenth in the world," the Federacciai president added.
"My wish is therefore that a negotiation is quickly reopened and that it can lead to a positive solution that has as its shared objective the maintenance of steel production in Taranto," he concluded.