Italy's top court set to rule on future of troubled Taranto steelworks

Italy's Supreme Court is due to consider on Tuesday a case that could have major ‌consequences for the former Ilva steelworks, a leading employer in the southern Italian city of Taranto and an important part of Italy's manufacturing sector, with a ruling expected in the coming days. The country's top court is reviewing ‌an order to shut the steelworks' blast furnaces on health and environmental grounds - a move the ‌company says could trigger the permanent closure of the plant, which was once the largest in Europe.

The ruling comes at a delicate moment for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government, which is trying to keep the country's largest steelmaker alive ⁠while ​dealing with mounting social tensions ⁠in southern Italy ahead of a national election due next year. The site is Italy's only integrated steelworks, producing the metal ⁠from iron ore and coal through a blast-furnace process. It employs around 8,000 workers directly and supports a large ​network of contractors in a city of fewer than 200,000 people.

The government has extended a ⁠bidding deadline for Acciaierie d'Italia, formerly Ilva, to allow potential investors time to assess the impact of the court ruling. The ⁠leading ​bidder is India's Jindal Steel International, while a consortium of Italian steelmakers coordinated by Federacciai has expressed interest mainly in selected downstream assets.

Workers demanding a viable industrial future for the plant staged ⁠a five-day strike last week, blocking access to an Eni refinery and disrupting fuel supplies to motorists ⁠and airports. Meloni has ⁠said her government would do "whatever it can" to safeguard production at the plant, adding that her administration had committed about €5 billion ($5.6 billion) to the facility since ‌taking office ‌in 2022.

($1 = 0.8912 euros)