The European Commission said
Thursday that two loans granted by Italy in 2015 to support the
troubled ILVA steelworks in the southern port city of Taranto
involved illegal State aid.
Consequently, Italy must now recover this undue benefit of
about 84 million euros, it added.
The commission instead found that a number of other support
measures were not State aid.
Thursday's decision does not interfere with the
implementation of essential environmental measures to tackle
pollution at the ILVA premises in Taranto, which has been blamed
for high cancer rates in the area.
"When the Commission opened the investigation, we made clear
that our State aid probe will not stand in the way of, or slow
down, the urgent environmental clean-up works in the Taranto
Region. This essential de-pollution work should continue without
any delay to protect the health of Taranto's inhabitants,"said
European Commissioner Margarethe Vestager, in charge of
competition policy.
Italian Minister for Economic Development Carlo Calenda
expressed his "great satisfaction" over the decision.
The undue benefit earmarked by the commission "corresponds to
84 million euros out of a total of over 2 billion euros
investigated", he said.
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