Guidesi to the EU: 'On cars change or millions of unemployed to be managed'

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - "The European Commission now has to decide whether to save the European automotive industry or let the entire sector die; either we change the rules and the current approach or we will leave the Chinese manufacturers with a monopoly; Europe will instead find itself dealing with a lot of unemployed people given that this sector, between direct and indirect, is worth 13 million jobs. With 'electric only', environmental goals will only be achieved through industrial desertification. The Commission will decide, there is no more time". Thus the Lombardy Region's Councillor for Economic Development, Guido Guidesi, duty President of the Automotive Regions Alliance (Ara), which brings together 40 of Europe's most important manufacturing territories that have a significant presence of companies in the automotive sector. The representatives of these territories met in Munich for their annual meeting at Iaa Mobility and signed a new Manifesto. The appointment comes on the eve of the strategic meeting of the sector, which will be held on 12 September in Brussels and will see, together with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, all the most important players in the automotive industry, but which has seen the exclusion of the Arab region: a choice much criticised by Lombardy, which called it 'a very bad signal', and by the entire Association, especially considering the regions' incidence on the European GDP, equal to 40 per cent. "It is serious that the Alliance has not been fully included in the strategic dialogue on the automotive sector, despite its essential role in representing regional interests, and it is considered a missed opportunity to ensure that territorial instances are adequately represented," reads the Manifesto signed by the members of the ARA.

For Guidesi, the Munich appointment was an opportunity to take an initial stock of his year as president and to set out his priorities, always with the aim of defending the automotive industry, which has been put in serious difficulty by 'ideological' decisions, as Guidesi defined them, made by the previous Commission and not corrected by the current one. "First of all,' Guidesi explained during his speech, 'it is important to emphasise the fact that the team has expanded to include 40 regions, which together represent Europe not only geographically but also economically, given that the 40 regions together account for practically half of Europe's GDP. Within the alliance we have created synergy and synthesis; at the same time we have succeeded in proposing documents to the European Commission with ideas and suggestions for achieving the goal of sustainable mobility without destroying competitiveness. At the moment, however, the Commission has not moved from listening to concretisation: in fact, so far only 5% of our proposals have been put into practice'. On the subject of priorities, many of which are included in the new ARA Manifesto, Chairman Guidesi emphasised how necessary and no longer postponeable it is now to implement the principle of 'technological neutrality'. In particular, a request was addressed to the Commission to also consider alternative fuels (e.g. biofuels) in achieving sustainable mobility.

A further passage emphasised by Guidesi and taken up again in the document concerns 'historic cars': 'It is emphasised that the EU legal framework setting climate targets in the road transport sector does not apply to classic cars, which play a fundamental role in preserving the historical and cultural heritage of Europe's automotive regions'. Another key element for Lombardy included in the Manifesto is the method of calculating emissions: 'It is important to consider,' the document states, 'the strategic role of life cycle assessment (LCA) in guiding technological development; at the same time, it is considered crucial for the EU to further invest in innovation related to biomaterials, circular design and low-impact production methods to support climate targets and regional industrial renewal for both automotive components and vehicle assembly and battery components and their assembly.