Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
TARANTO – Midnight tonight, Sunday 25 October 2026, marked the strict deadline of the 90 days ordered by the Court of Appeal in Milan for shutting down the hot-end area of the Ex Ilva steelworks in Taranto. Nevertheless, the blast furnaces and coke battery units of the Apulian giant have not stopped.
The order issued by the Milan judges on 27 July required the removal of asbestos from the plants and the reduction of fine particulate emissions within three months. Both Ilva and Acciaierie d’Italia immediately appealed, arguing that the measures were technically unfeasible within the set timeframe and lacked clear guidance on the emission targets to be met.
The government extension and the cost of gas
Temporarily freezing the hot-end shutdown has been a government decree law, which extended the plants’ preheating state until 15 December 2026.
For another 50 days, the plants will continue to operate, powered by gas that the company buys from third parties at very high costs (several hundred thousand euros a month), as it no longer has its own production due to zero output volumes. This is yet another financial burden for a group that closed the first half of the year with losses of €551.5 million, debts to suppliers of €1.749 billion and total indebtedness soaring to €8.48 billion.
Waiting for the Court of Cassation: the ruling of the United Civil Sections
The plant’s operational future remains closely tied to the ruling of the United Civil Sections of Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, which met on 20 October.
The companies have requested the annulment of the Milan order, while Taranto citizens’ associations demand its full enforcement. Notably, the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Cassation reiterated that the Milan court “did not base the suspension order on a concrete assessment of the health risk”, leaving any potential review to the referring judge.
While initially only the operative part of the ruling was expected to be published quickly, legal circles now believe the Supreme Court will directly release the full reasoning together with the operative part in the coming days.
Crucial deadlines: the government round table and the sale tender
The Ex Ilva file enters a decisive week on two parallel fronts:
- Round table with unions (27 October): On Tuesday the government will meet union representatives again at Palazzo Chigi to outline the action lines and the employment safeguard plan;
- Binding offers (8 November): Final deadline for the submission of purchase offers by groups interested in acquiring the industrial complex; in the running are the Indian giant Jindal and the Italian consortium led by Federacciai.
Both the executive, to calibrate future social safety nets, and the potential buyers, to define the industrial and economic scope of their offers, are awaiting the Court of Cassation’s final verdict to understand whether the Taranto plant will be able to keep its hot-end area or not.
