The committees' protests, the Ilva deal. Why Taranto Mayor Piero Bitetti resigned.

After less than two months in office , the center-left mayor of Taranto, Piero Bitetti, has resigned . Late on Monday, July 28th, after a meeting at the city hall with environmental associations, he filed his handwritten resignation. On July 31st, he was supposed to sign the Ilva agreement with Minister Urso at the Ministry of Mimit (Ministry of Mitigation and Mitigation). This agreement concerns a (very vague) plan that would replace the blast furnaces with electric furnaces and DRI production plants (supported by a regasification plant and a desalination plant) within eight years. It is unknown who will implement this plan, nor how much funding will be used. Furthermore, the agreement has no concrete technical significance, being a preliminary step towards the environmental permit for the blast furnaces, which has already been issued and will be valid for the next 12 years. However, it does have political significance, as it leaves the decision on its feasibility to local authorities.

Now, without the mayor, only Michele Emiliano will sign it. Emiliano , who (unlike the mayor) was initially in favor of the agreement that will conclude his ten-year presidency , has been in favor of it. Bitetti, however, had submitted the decision to the City Council meeting convened for the 30th, knowing that the center-right opposition would approve it.

Before that date, the mayor met with the unions at Ilva, and then with the associations that had requested it at City Hall. But while Bitetti was escorted to Ilva by Emiliano, proud of the unions' support after he said they had "mobbed" him, at City Hall the mayor found himself alone with the associations, who asked him not to sign and to dissociate himself from Emiliano's words: "No one ever asked me to close Ilva, only the victims. But they're not the ones who decide." When Bitetti decided to leave the room after two hours, the associations that hadn't been heard protested peacefully, and he responded by resigning .

The choice now for Bitetti is not whether or not to sign the agreement with Urso for a hypothetical Ilva plan, but whether to let Emiliano or the Taranto people dictate his line.

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