Lombardy and Catalonia, industrial synergy to make inroads into Europe

The Milan-Barcelona axis takes more and more shape. Direction: Brussels. Lombardy and Catalonia, two of Europe's most robust industrial engines, are working on an increasingly structured collaboration with an objective that goes beyond diplomacy between territories: to defend manufacturing, strengthen chemistry and present themselves to European institutions with a more incisive critical mass. This is the meaning of the meeting between the Lombardy Region's Councillor for Economic Development, Guido Guidesi, and the Minister for Enterprise and Labour of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Miquel Sàmper, which gives continuity to the path started in Barcelona in November 2025.

The substance is all in the nature of the two interlocutors: regions with a high industrial density, a strong vocation for exports, advanced supply chains and a specific weight that does not stop at national borders. Hence the idea of transforming a historical cooperation into an operational alliance, made up of joint working groups, regular meetings and common priorities on innovation, sustainability, skills and European industrial policies.

The pivot of the agreement is chemistry, read not as an isolated sector but as an invisible infrastructure of industry. In Lombardy, 98 per cent of manufacturing products incorporate a chemical component; in Catalonia, the sector is worth 12.5 per cent of the regional GDP and is the leading export sector. It is not surprising, then, that it is precisely from here that the decision to build a common front on competitiveness, ecological transition, research and the defence of strategic European supply chains comes.

Guidesi claims the political sense of the operation: 'Lombardy and Catalonia,' said the Lombardy councillor for economic development, 'are two similar regions from an economic and social point of view and contribute significantly to the European GDP. Working together in a structural way means strengthening support for the respective chemical sectors, a vital sector for manufacturing and in general for the international competitiveness of our territories. We implement the work already underway with the Ecrn (European Chemical Regions Network, ed.) to protect companies, employment and know-how, and that which we carry out at the tables of the Critical Chemicals Alliance'.

The Lombardy councillor's reasoning goes beyond the single agreement and becomes almost an industrial-political manifesto: 'Regions like ours that have many similarities, from the morphological, economic, and productive positioning points of view, can speak with a single voice. And I believe that this is the best way to build the Europe of the future, or rather to really build it'. And again: 'Our companies are on the European and international market. From Brussels come impositions, regulations. It is therefore imperative that institutional leadership is directed there, in Brussels. Alone we will be limited, but if we do it with other territories that like us contribute positively to the European GDP, perhaps we might have some results. So far we have been listened to, we will try to go from listening to making some changes'.