Negotiations have resumed between the Italian government and ArcelorMittal on the Ilva case after a four-hour meeting that ended late last Friday, November 22. Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte, economy minister Roberto Gualtieri and economic development minister Stefano Patuanelli, ArcelorMittal's president and CEO Lakshmi Mittal, his son Aditya Mittal, and Lucia Morselli, CEO of ArcelorMittal Italia, all participated at the meeting.
At the end of the meeting, Italian prime minister Conte announced that the legal battle against the company will soon be paused provided that in the meantime its plants are not shut down. At the same time, negotiations will open with the aim of arriving at a "new industrial plan with production solutions using ecological technologies and a maximum commitment to environmental remediation". Accordingly, the government will push for a brief delay of legal procedures and a postponement of the hearing set for November 27 before the Milan court that would have had to pronounce urgently on the appeal against the withdrawal of ArcelorMittal from the Ilva takeover agreement.
The result of the meeting is that negotiations have officially reopened between the Italian government and ArcelorMittal. The government has already put the possibility of public involvement on the table, although the commitment to the maximum level of employment will have to be guaranteed. In recent weeks, ArcelorMittal Italia had requested the lay-off of 5,000 workers.