Automotive, Guidesi: 'If the Commission does not change, there is a risk of new unemployed in Europe'

"If the European Commission does not radically change its approach to the automotive sector, the economic and employment situation in the sector will only worsen further, with serious social repercussions across the entire continent," said Lombardy Region's Councillor for Economic Development, Guido Guidesi, speaking in Bilbao, Spain, at the annual assembly of the Alliance of European Automotive Regions (Ara). "For four years now,' he explained, 'Lombardy has been fighting in Europe to defend the automotive sector, a strategic sector not only for the Lombard and Italia production fabric, but for the entire European industry. We are doing this by waging a battle of common sense together with the other European manufacturing regions, demanding that the ecological transition does not turn into industrial desertification'.

'The regulatory rigidity imposed by the European Union,' Guidesi continued, 'has been an extraordinary assist to Chinese manufacturers and a huge loss for European companies. In just a few years we have lost 4 million cars produced in Europe and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Numbers that certify the failure of an ideological approach'. According to the Lombardy councillor, 'environmental objectives can and must be achieved through the principle of 'technological neutrality', making the most of all available innovations and accompanying change without destroying production chains, skills and employment'.

Finally, Guidesi emphasised the need to recognise a central role for the European regions: 'There is a clear distance between the European Commission's imposing bureaucracy and the pragmatism of the regions, which every day deal with the real needs of workers and companies. It is not acceptable that the ARA, which represents the territories where European automotive production is concentrated, has been excluded from the strategic tables on the future of the sector'. 'It is the same centralist approach,' he added, 'that is also evident today in the Commission's desire to centralise the management of cohesion funds, debasing the role of regional governments. Lombardy will continue to resolutely oppose this vision, because without the contribution of the regions there can be no effective European industrial policy". 'We need to correct the mistakes made in recent years immediately,' Guidesi concluded, 'putting industry, employment and competitiveness back at the centre, so that the automotive sector is not the first of the sectors put in difficulty by a suicidal strategy.