CORIGLIANO-ROSANO «For me, the single authorization they issued is not valid, because it is not supported by a specific services conference. I have asked several times to withdraw it, to avoid finding myself with an appeal. It is never good for an institution to take action against another institution. Politically we are undoubtedly talking about a very serious investment, but it must be made outside the port boundaries. By not occupying the dock or at least partially occupying it, not with 10 thousand square meters.” These are the words of Mayor Flavio Stasi, extracted from the long and detailed interview given in recent days to Southern newspaper, which reopen, after the silences of the electoral interlude, the Nuovo Pignone Baker Hughes dispute which together with the New Highway 106 represents the other major issue of the territory and the city. Stasi, which has had the opportunity to know and appreciate the activity of the Italian-American multinational which operates in the field of cutting-edge metalworking and which has an important production plant in Vibo Valentia in Calabria, does not close the doors to investment. Indeed, he reiterates: «Baker Hughes, which is a serious company, must make a different investment». And the reference is to the fact that the new production site that Nuovo Pignone BH would like to establish in Sibaritide, in the opinion of the Mayor and the committee for the defense of the port, should be built in the backport, where the industrial area of Corigliano and there would be room for investment. An investment, however, which – as we wrote in recent weeks – has already received authorization from the Port System Authority of the Southern Tyrrhenian and Ionian Basins, to be carried out right inside the large Corigliano-Rossano dock and to which the Tuscan company has already started talks to hire managers for the implementation of the plan.
«The authorization procedure is wrong»
But the problem is precisely the single Zes authorization issued by the Port Authority, against which Stasi has announced that the Municipality will appeal. And here everything could change. «The appeal – the Mayor always said in the interview with the Quotidiano del Sud – is not a choice. If the procedure is wrong, it is a matter of protecting transparency to appeal. Because today it is Baker Hughes, a serious and reliable company. Tomorrow, perhaps, there will be an international “taker” or speculator doing the same thing. We cannot run the risk of creating a precedent.”
«The district attorney’s office says something completely different from Stasi’s opinion»
There are, of course, those who don’t think so. Above all, the president of the Port Authority, Admiral Andrea Agostinelli, who is sure that he has done all the right procedures “in his own house”. «I take note – says the president of the Calabrian port management body heard about it by Eco dello Jonio – of Mayor Stasi’s opinion. Then, however – he adds – we must also take into consideration the opinion of the District Attorney’s Office of Catanzaro, from which in recent weeks we have asked for feedback regarding the concerns of the Mayor. And this opinion tells us the exact opposite of what Stasi says. Indeed, it underlines how Stasi, in light of the single authorisation, is obliged to issue the permits requested by the investor”.
Meanwhile, Nuovo Pignone BH is already thinking about Plan B
In short, a complex affair which, if it were to end up on paper, could also put an end to everything circus of these last months. And this for a very simple reason: Nuovo Pignone BH, like every private company, needs to immediately start the planned investments which will certainly derive from first and important orders that the company has already closed. Wasting time on appeals and courts is certainly an economically significant hitch, and even more socially unsustainable if you then find yourself faced with hostile territory. Nothing could be easier, then, than in the rooms of Via Matteucci in Florence we would already be concretely thinking about a Plan B to bypass the port of Corigliano-Rossano and identify new solutions. Solutions, however, that do not ignore a port. And Agostinelli says this clearly. «I repeat, I greatly respect everyone’s views and opinions and the ideal world that everyone would like to build in their own subjectivity. But then we have to deal with reality. Thinking about an investment outside the port – underlines the president of the System Authority – means thinking about something that is not within the scope of this project. These, however, are investor strategies. I can answer for the documents I have in hand and there is no other way to land the investment for that type of project than the proposed perspective. This project, as structured, requires dock logistics that cannot be done outside the port. And on this, it seems to me, there is not much to think about.” (Echo of the Ionian)
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