The judiciary has closed the high-risk area at Ilva. But this time, the government is not protesting.

Had Parliament not amended Article 41 of the Constitution almost unanimously in 2022, there might not be an order today for Ilva to shut down its blast furnace. It was to this article that the Court of Cassation referred when upholding the Milan court’s order, noting that the constitutional reform stipulated that economic activity must not be carried out in a ‘manner that causes harm to health and the environment’. On the very day that the special commissioners appointed by the Minister for Enterprise, Adolfo Urso, went to the Senate to claim that Ilva does not pollute, the Court of Cassation ruled instead that the asbestos and emissions currently present are at odds with the freedom of enterprise.

Whilst from 2013 to the present day the principle established by the Constitutional Court – that no right should take precedence over another – has prevailed, today the interpretation has changed. This time, there are no ‘Save Ilva’ decrees to grant operating rights to facilities of national strategic interest. Since the Meloni government placed it under administration in 2024, Ilva is no longer considered strategic for the nation, and it has been led, day by day, toward industrial and economic collapse, even as the government continued to claim it wanted to turn the site into Europe’s largest green steelworks. ‘It’s the fault of those who came before,’ they will say. But this time not even Meloni – who, despite lashing out against the release of an innocent man (until proven otherwise) – is opposing the judges’ decision regarding the country’s largest factory. Because the judiciary has taken the heat off the politicians. Even the administrators have admitted that, following the latest state aid granted by the European Union, Ilva no longer had a penny left to buy raw materials. It remains to be seen who will pay the 8 billion in debts accumulated by the company. “The decree must include a ban on redundancies,” said the President of Puglia, Antonio Decaro, yesterday during a Senate hearing. It cannot produce but must pay wages. This is the Ilva that politicians like.