Cersaie kicks off amidst Made in Italy excellence and the risks of high energy prices and the environment

On the opening day of the 41st edition of Cersaie, the international ceramics exhibition, which aims to attract 100,000 visitors from all over the world between now and 27 September to the 15 pavilions of BolognaFiere that have been sold out for months (606 exhibitors, 38% of whom are foreign), it is not just the latest in tiles, slabs and bathroom furnishings that are holding the headlines, but two key themes for the competitiveness of the sector: energy and duties.

These were the two themes at the centre of the inaugural conference "Energy Transition and International Competitiveness for Italian Ceramics", in which Confindustria Chairman Emanuele Orsini reiterated that "Italian industry is aware of how important the environment is, so much so that on recycling we were already champions in Europe in 2021. In the world of ceramics, two billion euros of investments have been made in recent years under the banner of sustainability, reaching the point of recovering 100% of waste, reusing 99% of water, and generating 47% of electricity consumption with cogeneration. We have done our homework, but they become worthless investments if the EU's bar of green transition is raised any higher. Because Europe, which accounts for 15 per cent of world GDP and less than 8 per cent of total emissions, risks losing competitiveness and productivity quotas if further burdens of the green transition are placed on companies. In the meantime,' Orsini points out, 'sales of Indian ceramics (which do not respect any minimum environmental and social requirements) in Europe increased by 67 per cent last year, in a market that was losing 20 per cent.

And it is the host, the newly-appointed president of Confindustria Ceramica, Augusto Ciarrocchi, who explains that the ceramics industry needs "two very operational things: the revision of the ETS, an impracticable system with distortions that must be remedied because it has become just one more levy on an already very high energy cost, not a mechanism for reducing CO2 emissions; and a regulation for 'Made in', whether at the Italian or European level, because we must let our consumers know where a product comes from". These are vital issues for an energy-hungry 'hard-to-abate' sector such as ceramics, which lives by exporting over 80% of the volume of tiles produced worldwide. And this is also where the battle of duties against unfair Indian competition comes in, which Confindustria Ceramica is pursuing at the European level, to raise rates well beyond the current 7%, which is totally ineffective, and follow in the footsteps of the United States, where anti-dumping duties of between 328 and 489% are being discussed against Indian ceramics.

The Minister for the Environment, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, also spoke on the subject of energy, a key issue of competitiveness for a Made in Italy ceramic tile industry that employs more than 26,000 people and contributes 7.6 billion euro a year to the country's wealth and 5.4 billion euro to its exports, immediately after the ribbon-cutting ceremony of Cersaie 2024. "There is still a risk of price increases on energy," he warned from the Europauditorium stage. We take very little from Russia, an easily replaceable 5%, also thanks to the fact that from January 2025 the regasifier off the coast of Ravenna will come into operation, but the closure of the gas pipeline from Ukraine in November risks raising international prices. And the demand for energy will double in the next 25 years, from 300 to 650 TW, we need to start researching and experimenting with nuclear power'.

Nuclear energy, on which Confindustria has been campaigning for some time to accelerate its development: 'In Italy we pay 40% more for electricity than the rest of Europe, or when we have to buy it, we take it from French nuclear power plants,' Orsini recalls, renewing his request to Brussels to review the transition times and safeguard the principle of technological neutrality.