Francesco Macrì: ‘We must invest in a common European defence’

“The defence project can only be a European one.” This was the view expressed by Francesco Macrì, chairman of Leonardo, speaking in Naples at Spin Factor’s City Talks.

“We need to invest in defence,” says the chairman of Leonardo. He explains that there are two aspects to defence: the military aspect and the civilian aspect, which is the predominant one.” “We are living in a state of latent war,” he adds. “Just consider that Italia suffers over 500 cyber-attacks a year and the world 5,000.” But we must work towards a common defence. “Even a major company like Leonardo,” says Macrì, “cannot do it alone.” In European NATO countries, he adds, there are multiple platforms and defence systems which, compared to other countries or continents, are excessive. There is too much fragmentation. “We need to create economies of scale ,” adds the chairman of Leonardo, “and we are already working towards this today because Leonardo, together with Rheinmetall, is active in the land sector; with Thales and Airbus, we are ready to tackle space; and with other partners such as the United Kingdom and Japan, we are working on the GCAP, which is the sixth-generation fighter.”

According to Macrì, ‘today, the boundaries between the military and civilian sectors, and between the digital and physical realms, are becoming increasingly blurred. Italia must address the issue of strategic and technological autonomy alongside Europe’. The chairman of Leonardo speaks of an ‘industrial renaissance’ that leverages innovation to drive growth across various sectors: security, space, artificial intelligence and robotics. ‘By 2035, the space economy will generate $1,800 billion in value,’ he says. He also discusses AI. “A revolution on a par with that of the internal combustion engine, electricity and the internet,” he says. “We must harness artificial intelligence, as otherwise we risk becoming technological subjects.”

Today, following the decline of the automotive sector, Leonardo is Italy’s leading manufacturing company and benefits from a ‘cluster-based’ economy. ‘Italia has a huge competitive advantage over the rest of the world,’ adds Macrì, ‘what is often seen as a problem – namely our fragmented, cluster-based, regional economy – is in fact a great asset. In fact, there is a very high level of manufacturing expertise.” Leonardo operates in 15 regions across Italia and has 4,500 suppliers, 84 per cent of whom are SMEs.

City Talks is a programme conceived and produced by Spin Factor, which, over the two-day event in Naples, featured numerous speakers, including Vinicio Vigilante (GSE), Gaetano Manfredi (Mayor of Naples), Piero De Luca (PD), Marco Mezzaroma (Sport and Health), and Antonio Savarese (ACEN). In the morning, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Minister for the Environment and Energy Security, addressed the gathering: “We will implement the enabling act on nuclear power,” he said. “We are currently finalising the implementing decrees that will set out the permitting procedures.” He also announced, following the political agreement with the EU Commission, a new decree on energy bills.