Re-industrialising Italy and the EU: Pd proposals today

The cost of energy, the impact of demographics on the labour market and on finding skilled labour, the difficulties of small businesses in accessing European and national funds that do not take their size into account, the complicated transition from applied research to production. And of course - Mario Draghi docet - the now inescapable need for a united effort at the European level, with common debt and investments, to re-launch the competitiveness of the Old Continent and achieve the objectives of the ecological and digital transition otherwise unattainable by individual member states.

The title is 'The routes of the future: re-industrialising Italy and Europe' and the appointment is today and tomorrow in Rome for the National Conference of the PD Industry Forum chaired by Andrea Orlando in coordination with secretary Elly Schlein and economic manager Antonio Misiani. "We will ask to change Industry 5.0, the current mechanism of contribution to the sector, and to review the mechanism by which the price of energy is set, which is parametrised to that of gas, including that of renewables: they should cost much less, but they are sold at higher prices," Orlando anticipates. Then there is the big issue of wages and welfare, which is decisive to avoid Italian emigration to other countries.

It is no coincidence that one of the central points of the PD Green Paper on industrial policies that will be presented during the two-day event in Rome is the chapter 'Work and decent wages: beyond the minimum'. 'The quality of work is central to a fair and modern industrial policy,' reads the document. 'It proposes the introduction of a legal minimum wage, the strengthening of collective bargaining and public incentives linked to the creation of stable, secure and well-paid employment. Industrial missions must generate skilled labour, enhance skills, and encourage retraining. We also suggest experimenting with shorter working hours for the same wage, as a tool for fairness and increased productivity'.

The national conference organised by the PD, which will also be attended by many European guests in addition to Confindustria president Emanuele Orsini and CGIL leader Maurizio Landini, comes after a journey that Orlando has conducted in recent months in the industrial realities of the country, touching on 10 regions (Schlein attended in Liguria and Lombardy) and covering 2,500 kilometres, and that will continue in the coming months to arrive, in October, at concrete proposals on which the amendments for the next budget law will also be based.

Worthy of note is the proposal for the creation of a National Agency for Applied Research and Technology Transfer to bridge the gap between research and industry, and the proposal for a radical reform of industrial governance: 'We propose to entrust the Presidency of the Council with the coordination of industrial policies through an inter-ministerial committee, and to integrate a section dedicated to industrial strategy with clear and measurable objectives into the Def with the aim of integrating it into the Def. We also propose to: set up a Shareholdings Agency and an independent Industrial Strategy Council, reform Invitalia and Cdp to make them active implementers of industrial policy, activate a permanent State-Regions Conference for territorial coordination, and promote a public-private partnership to jointly define priorities and strategic investments'. Re-industrialise, therefore, 'leaving behind what even on the left we have heard in the past about the economy without industry and only services'.