Melfi on the road to recovery with the DS7 and Lancia Gamma

It is the first of the Stellantis plants to reopen its doors – it did so last Monday – with the assembly line resuming operations today. The Stellantis complex in Melfi is scheduled to reopen on Wednesday 19 August. This is the Group’s Italian plant with the broadest industrial remit – the Jeep Compass, which accounts for the highest volumes, followed by the start of production of the DS7, first, and then the Lancia Gamma, alongside the DS8. The new Alfa Romeo SUV, the fifth model in the line-up, is scheduled to begin pre-series production in 2027 and start full production in 2028.

Yet the transition phase is complex from an industrial perspective, to the extent that solidarity contracts have been extended until 31 December for 4,400 workers, and the key industrial issues – namely maintaining production volumes and the future of the supply chain – are far from resolved. For Melfi, the trade unions say, the two-year period 2026–2027 – straddling the ‘reigns’ of Carlos Tavares and Antonio Filosa – will be decisive in strengthening the competitiveness of the plant and the entire supply chain, and it is no coincidence that it was in Melfi, at the end of July, that the reindustrialisation agreement for PMC and Brose – involving 150 workers – was finalised. The focus, therefore, is on investment, innovation, competitive energy policies and a shared industrial strategy.

The Pomigliano plant, where the Fiat Panda is manufactured – a model which still accounts for half of Stellantis’ production volumes in Italia – has also seen the solidarity contracts for its workforce in Campania extended for a further year, confirming that the automotive market in Italy and Europe remains in a very critical phase and that the production volumes allocated are insufficient to utilise the installed production capacity to full capacity. The new production remit assigned to Pomigliano and confirmed by the company’s senior management concerns the production of the new family of electric cars.

The Mirafiori plant will reopen as normal next Monday, 24 August, whilst the Cassino site is extending its production halt until 31 August. This is not a holiday or a seasonal production halt, but a full-blown crisis, the trade unions reiterate. Production of the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio at the factory will continue throughout 2027, but volumes are at an all-time low: in the first half of the year (according to a Fim Cisl report), the factory saw a drop of one-third in production, which was already low in 2025. All eyes are on the coming months; Cassino’s future hinges on the relaunch of the Maserati brand – the Grecale SUV is currently being produced there – and on the business plan that Stellantis is due to present by next December