It won't just be the tractors of European farmers that will march towards Brussels. Soon the buildings of European political power will also be besieged by thousands of automotive workers is risk di lose work. A prophecy that the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy feels like making Adolfo Urso which yesterday transformed an initiative in Brussels by the Hungarian presidency on the automotive sector in the era of the “Green Deal” into a real act of accusation against the policy of Commission which is lulled into dangerous illusions and “fails to take note of the reality” of the automotive sector.
Because, the minister argues, "if we think of governing the green transition without considering the digital or geopolitical transition, that is, national security and European strategic autonomy, we will end up in a ravine". The data speaks clearly: car production has collapsed, some car manufacturers have announced the closure of factories such as Audi in Brussels which will not produce new models with the consequent layoffs of thousands of workers.
Stop to thermal engines by 2035: Italy asks for an early review
This is why at the Competitiveness Council today, Thursday 26 September, theItaly together with other countries starting from Germany will submit an informal document (“non paper”) to the European Commission for bring forward to early 2025 the exercise of the clause di revision scheduled for 2026 for the stop by 2035 of petrol and diesel engines. This, Urso claims, “in the absolute certainty that we cannot leave businesses and consumers in uncertainty about what to do”.
The minister had talks with his counterparts from Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany. “Tomorrow (today for those reading) – adds Urso – I will meet with the ministers at the Competitiveness Council and I hope to be able to formulate a proposal to submit to the Commission to bring forward the review already planned for 2026, to the first months of next year”. There are two roads ahead, observes the minister: “the main road of confirming the 2035 target for the end of internal combustion engines but deciding to create the necessary conditions to reach it; or, postponing the transition to electric”. The minister confirms that he prefers “the first road” but making “the 2035 target sustainable” to avoid “the workers demonstrating in Brussels”.
The Risk of China Dependence in Europe's Green Plans
In essence, the road map imagined by the Commission is not sustainable and has already demonstrated its contradictions with the collapse of the European electric vehicle market and the serious European car manufacturers in crisis. The Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, in an interview published yesterday on Financial Times highlighted how the EU ban on internal combustion engines for cars from 2035 has created a “serious crisis” for European car manufacturers and must be urgently revised also because at risk there are hundreds of thousands of jobs in the European automotive sector.
Urso recalled that electric vehicles “cost too much compared to the incomes of Europeans and Italians” and the hasty adoption of electric vehicles by Europe, without first having developed adequate national supply chains could leave the EU too dependent on China with the risk of “moving from dependence on Russian fossil fuels to dependence on critical raw materials from China, produced or processed in China”.
The alliance between Italy and Germany for a more competitive automotive industry
Un ally important of Italy is the GermanyYesterday, the Minister for Business had a video conference from Brussels with the Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, Robert Habeck. The two ministers shared the need to provide an approach aimed at technological neutrality and to provide joint investments, public and private, to support European industry in the face of global challenges, as indicated in the report on competitiveness drawn up by Mario Draghi. The German minister, Urso reported, "intends to maintain the 2035 date for the ban on internal combustion engines but is available to discuss all the conditions to reach that appointment with a competitive European industry, discuss which resources, including common resources, and technological neutrality as one of the fundamental conditions".
Un Piano quello European which, according to Urso, must provide adequate financial resources to accompany the industrial transition with a dedicated fund, a business-friendly environment with a focus on SMEs and creating a balance between vertical policies and horizontal actions.
Urso and the car: recovery recipes or ingredients for disaster?
However, not everyone agrees with Urso. According to Pasquale Tridico Head of the Five Star Movement delegation to the European Parliament, the recipes illustrated by the minister to relaunch the automotive market “are not the solution and risk worsening, rather than improving, the serious crisis that the sector is going through and the disastrous consequences for employment. Today we have hit rock bottom with almost 5 million hours of authorized redundancy payments in July alone, an increase of 37% compared to the same month of the previous year. In Turin, the increase is 28% compared to the same period in 49,4, numbers that have not been seen since the Covid era. Half of the factories in the Italian automotive supply chain are at risk of closure”.
Giorgio gori, MEP Pd "the European car companies, which have invested over 250 billion euros in the electric option, are not asking to postpone the 2035 deadline, but are asking that European politics accelerate the transition to electric with investments and choices regarding all components of the ecosystem: energy sources, European production of batteries and high-tech components, raw materials, charging infrastructures". Gori announced that he met, in a hearing with the group of European Socialists and Democrats of the Industry Commission, the representatives of the main car manufacturers of our continent but "none of them have shown interest in reviewing the deadline that interrupts the sale of cars with internal combustion engines in 2035. The companies have already invested hundreds of billions in that direction and are not asking for a change of direction, as instead hoped for by the Italian Government".
Stellantis' position: a crisis to be transformed into an opportunity
In a note yesterday, however, stellantis says it “welcomes Minister Urso's suggestion of a European fund to support the transition, identifying the accessibility of electric models as the main obstacle to the take-off of this market. In fact, the production of models depends on customer demand, for whom accessibility is the primary purchasing criterion: to have accessible products, it is necessary to reduce production costs, starting with energy. Without forgetting the need for a strong cultural push, without hesitation. We are confident – the note adds – that close collaboration with trade unions and the Italian government will allow us to find effective and sustainable solutions for our common future, transforming this crisis into an opportunity to make Italy the leading country in the transition”.
