Lombardy and European regions pressing the EU to save the automotive industry

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - The work of the Lombardy Region's Councillor for Economic Development, Guido Guidesi, continues to make Lombardy an increasingly important player in Europe. In Strasbourg, as president of the Automotive Regions Alliance, he attended a meeting with all 40 member regions and held bilateral meetings with the president of the Grand-East region and the Bavarian minister. The main topics discussed were automotive and siderurgy.

At the first one, Guidesi reiterated to the European regions the 'need to make corrections to the current European Commission directives in order to avoid what could be remembered as the most important economic suicide in history'. Already today 75% of potential production in Europe is at a standstill: 500,000 jobs are at risk on the continent. In Italy, the number of cars produced in 2024 was 20% lower than in 2019, with peaks of 30% for component manufacturers. This is a sector that in Lombardy alone has more than 30,000 companies and 100,000 workers, with a total turnover of EUR 40 billion.

"As Sistema Lombardo, in the last four years we believe we have put everything we could into the field; we were the first to raise cries of alarm in the most deafening silence, we have prepared scientific documents thanks to the support of the Lombardy Mobility Cluster and Universities, we have created alliances with European regions; now it is up to Europe to give concrete answers and make radical changes to save a strategic sector for European manufacturing. We will continue to fight to save companies and jobs; for us, the principles of 'technological neutrality' and 'plurality of traction' do not change and we seriously expect the Commission to take them on board as well,' Guidesi explained on the sidelines of the meetings in Strasbourg. Since 2021, Lombardy has been engaged in the battle to safeguard the automotive sector and in recent months has promoted two documents submitted to Commissioner Tzitzikostas: the first is the 'Monza Declaration' signed by all 40 regions belonging to the Automotive Alliance to promote technological neutrality, and the second is the 'Renewable Fuels Manifesto' signed by the main stakeholders and trade associations at national level to promote a plurality of low-emission traction, in addition to electric power.

The plenary session with the 40 regions belonging to the ARA was an opportunity to reiterate concerns, find common strategies and deliver the update of the Lombardy 'Renewable Fuels Manifesto' with the aim of strengthening alliances and continuing the work so that the voice of the territories can be heard in Europe and influence the decisions of the European Commission and Parliament.

"Today we note positively the unity of the Regions on the principle of 'technological neutrality'; it is also important to have jointly requested the maximum involvement of the Regions for the new action plan, also reiterating a strong concern for the situation of the automotive sector at the European level; a situation that requires immediate changes," Guidesi continued. During the plenary of the Automotive Regions Alliance, the German Länder present (Bavaria, Saxony and Baden Wurttemberg) shared some of the main principles of the Lombardy Manifesto, including the need to adopt the principle of technological neutrality and the need to use biofuels to cut emissions on the current circulating fleet; when up to now they had only focused on e-fuel.