LETTER / Ilva will not be the only one to close: Italy will go to its knees

Dear Editor,
from Tarantino to abroad for more than thirty years I would like to make a brief argument and launch an appeal for the city.

If ArcelorMittal closes Ilva, as now appears decided, a Region will jump and Italy will go to its knees. Quotations, sentences and sentences, if ever, will arrive in Taranto dead.

The controversies and judicial threats on the Mittal contract in Taranto for what purpose? In these cases the investor reasons in this way: first I take mine and then it shows. This is because the Italian government is very weak, and with the slowness of bureaucracy and justice, who will come in 10-20 years to demand penalties?

When you make large investments there are only three things: politics, the convenience of the parties and the balance of power. Did this government or previous governments not know it and / or pretend not to know? Or worse, ignore the basic laws of politics?

Finally the city. Taranto has essentially ceased to exist since the Roman Empire. For two centuries it has only been a repository of other people's ideas. It was rediscovered by Napoleon who wanted to make it the bridge between Europe, unified under his rule, Asia and Africa. The Kingdom of Italy, just after the unification, fished out the project and made it its main military port.

The first Republic, in its noble afflato of developing the South, made us the Italsider, the largest and most sophisticated steel industry in Europe. After that there was nothing else. At the beginning of 2000 Romano Prodi wanted to make it the largest commercial port in Europe, but they did not respond to a new central and local government.

Does the government have any ideas now? Does the city have it? If the government of Rome is weak, that of Taranto is perhaps worse. In the city there are only two forces that in these years have fought for a solution: Archbishop Santoro and the Navy, which today remains the largest single local employer. Can we start from there? Can they promote at least one discussion table for the future of the city?

There are also the tarantins left that I would call to get together to think about the city. The first illustrious fellow citizens who come to mind because they are childhood friends are the writer Giancarlo De Cataldo and the Director General for the Environment at the European Commission Mauro Petriccione.

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