Another postponement, a couple of weeks at most. Because despite the explicit political will, the agreement still does not exist. The fate of the former Ilva of Taranto remains hanging on the thread of the negotiation between the government and Arcelor Mittal. Negotiation that is continuing to the bitter end but still has not led to an understanding on the details and, above all, has not yet overcome the stumbling block. We go on in small stages, in a path that still remains very difficult, so much so that the most pessimists fear that in the end the judges will have to express themselves, also because, even in these last hours, the negotiation would have made some steps forward but also several steps back. And the company would remain firm on the 3 thousand structural redundancies indigestible for the government, even before the unions. The crux is also that of the resources that will be provided by the new business plan, to which the redundancies - needless to say - are closely linked. But officially the parties continue to show optimism: the premier, Giuseppe Conte, said he was confident after the meeting in London that even the leaders of the steel giant called positive.
"There has been progress and we are confident that further progress can be made," said Aditya Mittal, president and chief financial officer of AM, speaking to analysts during the presentation of the accounts. The group closed 2019 with a red of 2.5 billion dollars but an Ebitda of 925 million dollars, better than estimates, and prospects for improvement for 2020 that the markets liked (the title also touched a rise in the '11% on the Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam lists). The signs of a "slowdown in demand that begins to stabilize", with the expectation of an "increase in the core markets", indicated in the conference call, could also benefit the game being played in Italy.