The film is always the same. Seen and seen again. In black and white and technirama , as if the story were flowing on frames already imprinted in a script written long ago. Eurallumina, Russian property, closed in March 2009. Four hundred and fifty direct workers sent home without too many pleasantries. Fifteen years later, gates still barred, no serious reopening project, workers perpetually deceived by continuous announcements of news and promises without follow-up, plant reduced to a pile of rust. Alcoa, American property, closed in November 2012. Never reopened. An endless river of public money "given" to a Swiss company with no history that from 2018 to today has done nothing but announce production relaunches and new employment. For now, however, nothing concrete, despite the plethora of Ministers who have come over the years to the bedside of the aluminum factory. Finally, Christmas 2024, the year of the Jubilee.

Glencore, the escape

It is the turn of “Portovesme srl”, in reality Glencore, a Swiss multinational. After having “buried” the lead production line, on the eve of the opening of the Holy Door, it has decided to close the zinc asset as well. Twelve hundred employees in total: 500 directly who will be laid off, while for the workers in related industries the future is on the streets, as befits multinationals that first exploit, pollute and then run away. More Ministers will arrive at those barred gates. The script includes indignation, severe and shouted protests against the multinationals of the moment, complete with rhetorical appeals for foreign “clemency”.

Yet another blackmail

And yet, here, deep in Sulcis, the one industrialized by the State in the seventies with the aim of extracting lead and zinc from the galena torn from the metal-bearing bowels of Iglesiente, yet another “blackmail” is taking place to the detriment of workers, health and the entire territory. According to some, the word “blackmail” cannot be used. Just so as not to offend the “sensitivity” of foreigners, as if they had not already taken advantage enough. At stake is a sneaky and creeping attitude, with some accomplice in Sardinian soil ready to be enchanted by the mirage of the world’s “poisons”, capable of raising, according to the new visionaries, the fate of employment and development. In reality, it would be a matter of allowing those who have stopped everything, lead and zinc, to impose a “backtrack” on development on an entire territory, forcing it to sacrifice thousands of jobs, in exchange for a few workers to create a real global crossroads of poisons, steelworks fumes and lithium Black mass . One way like any other to “bury”, forever, Sulcis’s ambition to live without blackmail, those between work and health, markets and pollution. The Swiss multinational did not take well the decision last year by the Region not to passively accept the plan to recycle the global Black mass , lithium battery waste, in Portovesme, a project that harbors within itself the unhealthy goal of transforming the future of this strip of Sardinian land, already raped with both hands, into a gigantic global hub of poisons.

Everyone at home

This is the bone of contention, even if everyone will deny it: waste and poison in exchange for a temporary halt to layoffs. Then, once the ominous green light for the “global recycling” of lithium batteries has been obtained, the “party”, that of “everyone at home” will start again, as it always has been. The game is a consolidated game plan: threaten layoffs, lay off, exasperate and obtain rich incentives and green light for poisons and waste. On Christmas Eve the plan was accelerated by what the Glencore press release calls “ rapid evolution of technical circumstances ” that led to the “ decision to stop the zinc line on December 23 ”. They also want to be seen as new guardians of safety at work and they write: “ this is to guarantee the technical integrity of operations, the safety of our staff and the management of environmental impact risk ”. In short, they would even like applause for the “timely” pre-Christmas closure. The Ministry of Made in Italy, increasingly inclined to sponsor foreign solutions, see the latest decree-law on critical materials, has even announced " a technical mission preparatory to the search for new investors with industrial projects compatible with the activities currently present on the Portovesme site ".

Kiosk for sale

As if replacing a multinational that produces lead and zinc meant opening a soft drink kiosk. All propaganda statements consolidated over time: they said it for Eurallumina, they reaffirmed it for Alcoa, they say it today for Glencore. The reality is quite different: the Ministry wants to sponsor, without mincing words, that nefarious project of making Sardinia a landfill for Black Mass poisons, a hypothesis already rejected by the Region and the Municipality of Portoscuso. To pursue this wicked plan, accepting foreign conditioning, Rome has even issued a decree already converted into law, with which it has "annihilated" the Autonomous Statute of Sardinia, "military force" stripping the Region of statutory and constitutional powers, essential to block this umpteenth environmental outrage. It is no coincidence that the current Regional Council had to challenge that Government measure before the Constitutional Court with clear and specific accusations: the Ministry's measure is written in the appeal " has undermined the constitutional framework of legislative and administrative competences, outlined by the Special Statute for the Sardinia Region, by the Constitution, by the relevant implementing provisions ". The Sardinian appeal to the Court of Laws is very harsh: the law on rare materials and recycling " is the arbitrary and in any case unjustified modification of the system of attributions and prerogatives established by the Sardinian Statute and the Constitution to the advantage of the Sardinia Region ". The constitutional "snatch" on the "recycling" of rare materials is not a casual operation, but studied in detail, just to assign to the "foreigner" on duty yet another polluting concession over the head of the Island. A game, however, that cannot be decided before the constitutional ruling, even if the Ministry and Glencore itself will try in every way to force the hand, perhaps trying to avert the pronouncement of the Judges of the High Court. What emerges most clearly in this scenario of "blackmail", favors and conditioning, is the total absence of a public strategy, with multinationals that take the Government and the Region "for a walk", increasingly inclined to a facade contestation and a sibylline subservience.

No strategic plan

No one, neither the Region nor the Government, for that matter, have taken into consideration what has been implemented in other territories and in other disputes, see the steel in Taranto: the nationalization of strategic production. In Sardinia, however, to pretend to "plug" the leaks, they are pursuing insane industrial "chopping up" to be entrusted to some improvised "srl" of little value. In short, double standards. The Government, for example, has declared the "rare materials" contained in the two hundred million cubic meters of Sardinian mining waste to be "strategic". In reality, we revealed it years ago in our newspaper, according to the estimates of an Australian company in the mining waste of Iglesiente there is a mountain of "critical" materials. The prices on the London Metal Exchange revealed real deposits of lead and zinc for a value of over three and a half billion euros. In short, enough for a serious and concrete ten-year plan to use those metal-bearing and strategic resources, completely reclaiming the polluted territories. Portovesme srl, in order to make a huge profit, has, instead, preferred to treat the nefarious steelworks fumes coming from half the world, sometimes even radioactive, rather than implement, perhaps in a joint venture with Igea or Carbosulcis, a strategic plan to extract and reclaim "lead" and "zinc" contained, with significant levels, in those piles of pollution. For example, it was preferred, for the umpteenth time, to squander the resources of the Just transition fund for Sardinia in a thousand useless streams.

Money in the wind

An allocation of 367 million, with a questionable allocation of 49 million for technical assistance, which instead of pursuing a real strategic project, such as the "productive reclamation" of those mining sites, will be "consumed" without any response for environmental remediation, new jobs and economic recovery. Nor will the Government pursue the appointment, as it was, for example, for the Ilva in Taranto, of a special commissioner for major industrial crises, to show the gentlemen of Glencore the door, imposing the maximum possible outlay for environmental remediation. The "public" management of the industrial site would be more than legitimate, with a credible strategic plan for productive remediation and reconversion. Not a new failed Sulcis Plan, but concrete projects in which the State and Region assume a direct and leading role. For this poor land of Sulcis, however, perhaps it means asking too much. Better a few post-Christmas pats, a few state cameras and a goodbye until the next closing statement.

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