The measures provided for by the Sostegni decree do not satisfy the associations. After perplexities expressed today by Confartigianato and CNA also Assolombarda And Anfia, the national association of the automotive industry sector, they join the chorus of the discontented.
“The text currently available on the measures to combat the energy emergency in our opinion presents significant criticalities in the medium to long term – he says Alessandro Spada, president of Assolombarda -. If we look at the immediate moment, we certainly evaluate the zeroing of system charges for the first quarter of 2022 as positive for users with available power equal to or greater than 16.5 kW, also connected in medium and high / very high voltage because it involves all companies. . Certainly negative, however, is the fact that these are measures relating exclusively to the short term and electricity, without therefore interventions on gas which is the energy component that has undergone the highest price increase and which is still an important energy vector for the our country and on which we believe it is essential, for example, to increase the extraction capacity of national fields from the current 4 billion cubic meters per year to 8. Unfortunately – concluded Spada -, many of our proposals, developed according to a structural logic with impacts in the short but also in the medium-long term have not been taken into consideration “.
“From the first drafts circulated relating to the support decree-law, on the subject of expensive energy, it seems to emerge that the measures taken into consideration by the Government are conjunctural and not structural: a series of spot interventions insufficient to counter the increase of more than 6 times the cost of gas and over 4 of that of electricity, which prevent companies, in the next few weeks, from being able to satisfy the orders which, also, are abundant also from abroad. in France and Germany – underlines in a note Anfia -. In the measures of the draft decree we do not find feedback to the proposals made by us, concerning in particular: the sale of national gas production to industrial sectors for 10 years with anticipation of financial benefits for the year 2022; the sale of renewable electricity delivered to GSE for a quantity of approximately 25TWh and transferred to industrial sectors at risk of closure at a price of 50 euros / Mwh; the increase in subsidies for energy-intensive sectors with reference to the parafiscal components of the electricity bill “. The main criticality of the measures, writes Anfia,” is the lack of a strong immediate impact that allows us to work together with the Government, in the following months, to a more structural and long-lasting plan, and exposes the entire automotive supply chain, to which most of the energy-intensive companies refer, a further huge risk factor, in addition to those already present for the acceleration of the energy transition ” .
“This emergency represents, and not only for our supply chain, a real pandemic – he comments Roberto Vavassori, Anfia delegate for Energy – given the gravity for the Italian economic system, of which we are celebrating the 2021 results, which, however, risk being nullified precisely by the energy element. It is something unacceptable. Entire industrial chains have a high quantity of orders to fulfill but, due to expensive energy, they are unable to decide whether to produce at a loss or stop. Another paradox is that the advantages of the situation are countries, including Europeans, our competitors who do not have the same dependence on gas as Italy, which therefore pays for its being more virtuous in terms of environmental impact. The intensity and immediacy of the measures outlined in the support decree-law are very different from those we are asking for. It is necessary to create a situation not unlike that of France: to reformulate the mechanism for fixing the price of energy by making renewables play (at controlled prices available to the manufacturing industry), which are not considered today. From the point of view of the Italian automotive production chain, this intervention is very urgent and indispensable for various reasons: we were strongly affected, in 2021, by a series of negative factors that led to a year end at -20% of turnover. ; we are the only chain of the manufacturing industry which is required, at European level, to achieve very ambitious environmental objectives in a very short time; even if not all of our companies are energy-intensive, we depend on energy-intensive industrial chains, which reverse the price increases on us; we are faced with an important decision by the Stellantis Group, which did not fail to put the cost of energy on the index in order to plan a huge investment in Italy: a gigafactory, which, by definition, thrives on energy. We therefore ask that measures be put in place that will have an immediate impact in the coming weeks, and then quickly define structural measures in the months to come, when the tension will ease “.
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