{"id":470920,"date":"2026-11-11T17:14:25","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T16:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/11\/11\/fontana-ricorda-seveso-la-tutela-della-salute-vada-insieme-al-sostegno-alle-aziende-ue\/"},"modified":"2026-11-11T17:34:00","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T16:34:00","slug":"fontana-recalls-seveso-health-protection-must-go-hand-in-hand-with-support-for-eu-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/11\/11\/fontana-recalls-seveso-health-protection-must-go-hand-in-hand-with-support-for-eu-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Fontana recalls Seveso: “Health protection must go hand in hand with support for EU businesses”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The Seveso disaster, fifty years ago, \u201ctaught Europe to change its rules in order to better protect its citizens. Today, that same Europe must demonstrate that it knows how to listen to those who know and govern the regions.\u201d This is the message that the President of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fontana<\/strong>, delivered in Brussels at the event marking the 50th anniversary of the Seveso disaster, held at the ICMESA plant in Meda. <\/p>\n

Today (11 November), at a press briefing with the President of the European Committee of the Regions, Kata T\u00fctt\u0151, on the sidelines of the anniversary conference, Fontana emphasised that \u201cthe lesson from Seveso shows just how vital it is to prevent risks and protect people<\/strong>. But this protection must go hand in hand with policies capable of providing concrete support for the European production system.<\/strong>” In other words, \u201cEurope must be rigorous in demanding the application of strict standards, because they safeguard people\u2019s health, but also in supporting businesses in their transition towards sustainability and the elimination of all types of risk\u201d to people\u2019s health and lives. \u201cWe cannot afford to have a European industry that is weaker, that is not competitive with the rest of the world, that loses ground on the global stage,\u201d observed the President of the Lombardy Region. Therefore, \u201cindustrial development and environmental sustainability must proceed in parallel,<\/strong> not to the detriment of one another, nor should one be considered more important than the other. Otherwise, our regions would suffer further, equally serious consequences,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

On 10 July 1976, an accident in one of the plant\u2019s reactors led to the release and dispersion into the atmosphere of a cloud of TCDD dioxin, an extremely toxic man-made substance, which affected a vast area of land in the neighbouring municipalities of the lower Brianza region, particularly Seveso. The short-term consequences included hundreds of people suffering from poisoning, cases of chloracne \u2013 a skin condition \u2013 and cancers, as well as over 700 people being evacuated, 3,300 animals dying and a further 76,000 being culled. However, in the long term, for the Italian National Institute of Health, \u201cthe effects of the Seveso accident are not limited to cancers: in zones A and B, increases were also observed in mortality from circulatory diseases in the first few years following the accident, as well as from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes mellitus amongst women.\u201d As the ISS notes, this was \u201cone of the most serious environmental accidents in Italian history<\/strong>\u201d and a watershed moment in the history of European industrial safety: that disaster led to the first EU directive of 1982 on the prevention of major industrial accidents<\/strong>, subsequently updated to the current Seveso III, shifting Europe from a model of responding to emergencies after they have occurred to a system based on risk prevention<\/a>, on controls, planning and the protection of communities. <\/p>\n

According to the President of the European Committee of the Regions, Kata T\u00fctt\u0151<\/strong>, \u201cEurope\u2019s strategic autonomy must go hand in hand with risk assessment.\u201d Because \u201cif we build a battery factory, for example, we don\u2019t just do it on a map, but in a real location: people should not be afraid of new infrastructure but learn to tolerate it.\u201d Therefore, \u201cwe want resilience and preparedness,\u201d T\u00fctt\u0151 emphasised, \u201cbut we must always take the costs into account. Over the years, Europe has outsourced its mining, critical materials, textile, and data centre production: as international cooperation dwindles, the risks also increase,\u201d the president emphasised, pointing out that \u201cin this process, the regions and cohesion policies must also be at the heart of risk assessment.<\/strong>\u201d <\/p>\n

Fontana agreed, emphasising \u201cthe importance of the participation of the regions and local authorities in decisions that need to be taken at a local level\u201d because \u201cthey are the only institutions that know the local area and the various economic activities, and who understand the problems that arise.\u201d But this approach \u201cruns counter to the direction the Commission has been taking to date, which is moving towards centralisation,\u201d Fontana reiterated. Centralisation is<\/strong> \u201cthe opposite of subsidiarity and is<\/strong>, in my view, the worst choice that could be made for this great, excellent Europe<\/strong> which draws its very essence and one of its strengths from its environmental, cultural, and entrepreneurial diversity,\u201d concluded the President of the Lombardy Region. <\/p>\n

And while Brussels commemorates the Seveso disaster, in Turin, Italy, the Supreme Court delivered a harsh blow last night<\/b> regarding another tragedy \u2013 one which, too, has European implications and is not merely a national issue \u2013 that has claimed the lives of workers and innocent victims for decades: the asbestos crisis. The Fourth Criminal Division of the Court of Cassation has quashed the nine-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed down to Stephan Schmideiny, the Swiss tycoon and last owner of Eternit in Casale Monferrato, in the province of Alessandria, and has ordered a new appeal trial in relation to over 60 cases. Furthermore, the statute of limitations has been declared to have expired for a further 25 asbestos victims, who will thus be left without justice. During the hearing, the Attorney General\u2019s Office had requested that Schmideiny\u2019s sentence of nine years and six months be upheld and that the defence\u2019s appeal be declared inadmissible, on the grounds that the judgement handed down by the Court of Assizes of Appeal was \u201cwell-reasoned\u201d and had \u201csuccessfully fulfilled its obligations with great scrupulousness and logical consistency.\u201d Before the hearing began, a delegation from Afeva, the association of relatives of asbestos victims, had pointed out that the trial \u201chad begun for 392 mesothelioma victims, the vast majority of whom were citizens,\u201d and that \u201conly 91 remained on appeal, mainly due to the expiry of the limitation periods\u201d. At the protest, the association reiterated its demand for justice, truth, and the clean-up of the area. Something for which, in 2026, we still have to fight too hard and for too long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The President of the Lombardy Region attended the event marking the 50th anniversary of the disaster of 10 July 1976 at the ICMESA factory in Meda. The President of the Committee of the Regions, T\u00fctt\u0151, said: \u201cStrategic autonomy must go hand in hand with risk assessment\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7874,"featured_media":459591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30961,30805,25681],"tags":[30273,27587,36621,26671,32984,34810,36622],"class_list":["post-470920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-salute-en","category-industry-markets","category-politics","tag-asbestos-en","tag-attilio-fontana-en","tag-casale-monferrato","tag-committee-of-regions-en","tag-regione-lombardia","tag-seveso","tag-tragedia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":470921,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470920\/revisions\/470921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}