Carlo Calenda: 'Without nuclear power, decarbonisation is impossible'

We are talking about the dead line of 2035, when cars with combustion engines can no longer be produced.

It is clear that we will not manage to shut down endothermic production by 2035, unless we spend an amount equivalent to the superbonus to buy Italians new cars. And there is still the huge problem of infrastructure, i.e. the recharging stations to be distributed throughout the territory, including small villages and historic centres. Before 2035 there is still 2025, which is now. The EU Commission has stipulated that from next year one fifth of production, and consequently of sales, must be electric vehicles. The problem is that people do not buy them, electric vehicles: today we are at 15% at European level (4% in Italy), and 20% of owners already want to return to traditional cars for lack of infrastructure. If this legislation is not changed next year there will be 15 billion in fines for manufacturers, who have thrown themselves into electrics even though there is no market for them. And now changing the platforms is very expensive. Hence the demand for incentives to cover the cost gap, not only here but also in Germany. So we will have a dramatic problem next year in the automotive sector, which is worth 2,200 companies: they have run out of redundancy funds and need a support plan with incentives that must be structured as the French have done, that is, linked to production in Europe, otherwise we will incentivise Chinese companies. Which our government has not done. The money is there, because the Draghi government has put 8 billion on automotive, yet there is no response. If we don't do something, the automotive industry will blow up. That is why the opposition has presented the government with a plan to support the automotive industry: we may have - and have - different ideas on the Green Deal, but we have focused on the plan to avoid redundancies from January. What we are asking from the Meloni government is the development of an industrial policy strategy, which is clearly not working.

Even on Transition 5.0 everything is still...

As we said from the outset, there is too little time to use those incentives and there are too many bureaucratic steps, as many as thirteen. The mechanism as it is does not work, we need to restore the same process that existed with Industry 4.0, namely the possibility to start using the incentives immediately without waiting for authorisations and expertise. Now instead, to get these incentives, the entrepreneur must first apply for authorisation, then send an expert opinion, and then wait for approval. In short, the checks before and during the investment are enormous, and the system has become bogged down, not least because it took seven months to issue the implementing decrees, with the result that 50 million out of over 6 billion have been used. If we go on like this, a perfect storm is looming next year: industrial production continues to fall, the 2025 deadline for the automotive industry and the risk of tariffs if Donald Trump wins the US elections.

Senator Calenda, today you are voting in Liguria and Action is in the alliance supporting Andrea Orlando. Will you also be in the wide camp in the next political elections?

We are committed to building a liberal centre. The end. For the next three years we have to work on concrete proposals, because the citizens don't really care about the discussion on alliances and perimeters.

What will you do on Wednesday about the election of the missing constitutional judge? You criticised the Pd's choice of Aventino.

We will be in the Chamber and we will not withdraw the ballot. But our proposal, which I have also personally made to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, remains the same: an agreement to elect by the end of the year, when their term of office ends, three more members of the Consulta, two judges chosen by the majority, one by the oppositions and one as a guarantee for all.