“Revising European rules is a priority for remaining competitive”

Europe is saving the Italian ceramics industry. Yet Europe itself is hindering its competitiveness. Figures for the first half of the year compiled by Confindustria Ceramica show an increase in exports of ceramic tiles to the EU, both in volume (+4.8 per cent, totalling 94.3 million cubic metres) and in value (+3.4 per cent, exceeding one and a half billion euros) in the first six months of the year, confirming the positive trend of 2025. The rest of Europe also offers some cause for satisfaction, with a 2.9 per cent increase in volume and a 1.6 per cent increase in value. Italia remained stable: +0.7 per cent in volume and -0.8 per cent in value. A breath of fresh air for a sector which, by contrast, is recording declines in all other parts of the world, starting with the United States – a market which alone accounts for 700 million euros in exports per year. Tariffs are taking their toll: although losses in 2025 were limited to -0.2 per cent by volume, in value terms (-5.1 per cent) it was already clear that companies needed to lower their prices to remain competitive and not lose their market position.

And it is precisely this disparity between sales by volume and sales by value that provides the key to interpreting the figures for the first half of the year and, more generally, the current economic landscape of the sector, as suggested by the president of Confindustria Ceramica, Augusto Ciarrocchi, on the eve of the sector’s most important international trade fair, Cersaie, which will take place in Bologna from tomorrow until Friday. Because this gap (even where the figures are positive, as in Europe) tells the whole story: there is the crisis in key markets, caused primarily by US tariffs and the war in Iran; there is the cost of gas, which has more than doubled since the start of the year, again as a result of the war; there is a European industrial policy that seems incapable of reshaping its own rules – whilst maintaining its principles and objectives – to adapt them to a constantly changing geopolitical and economic landscape. Finally, there is the increasingly fierce competition from countries such as India, Turkey and China.

“Markets that were once our strongest or most promising, such as the United States and the Gulf states, are in sharp decline,” explains Ciarrocchi, “and new potential markets – however promising – such as the Mercosur countries, are certainly not enough to make up for this.” In the first six months of the year, in fact, the Americas as a whole recorded tile exports worth 414.3 million euros, 8 per cent down on the first half of 2025, whilst the fall in volumes (22 million cubic metres) was limited to 4.3 per cent. The situation also varies greatly from country to country, but the overall picture remains the same: the market environment is extremely challenging and only Europe managed to close the half-year with sales holding up, with nearly 200 million square metres of tiles sold worldwide (including Italia), representing a 1.2 per cent increase on the first six months of 2025, and exceeding 3.2 billion euros in value (-0.6 per cent). However, this is a very fragile balance, explains Ciarrocchi: ‘Companies are struggling on the pricing front, because in the current market conditions it is impossible to pass on increases in production costs to customers.’

Yet the price of gas has risen from around 30 euros per MW/h at the start of the year to the current 70 euros, and this has a significant impact on the financial accounts of a highly energy-intensive sector such as ceramics. ‘Added to this is the madness of the Emissions Trading Scheme,’ observes Armando Cafiero, General Manager of Confindustria Ceramica. ‘On top of the doubling of gas costs, there has been a rise in ETS prices, driven by financial speculation. And given that, as things stand, there are no alternative technologies to gas available for our sector, this translates into an additional cost increase of between 15 and 20 per cent for businesses.” This makes certain measures all the more urgent, both at national and European level. As regards Italia, Confindustria Ceramica is calling for ‘the immediate and full implementation’ of the ‘Decreto Bollette’, which provides, amongst other measures, for a reduction in the spread between TTF (the main European gas price reference hub, in the Netherlands) and PSV (the Italian trading hub), which penalises Italian industry, with a spread of around 4 euros per MW/h compared with European competitors.

At EU level, the priority is the revision of the Emissions Trading System, which is currently under scrutiny by the European Parliament. In the absence of technological alternatives, the European ceramic tile sector is among those hardest hit. A review of the fuel benchmarks (the system that determines the allocation of free CO₂ emission allowances) is needed: a ‘priority’ for Ciarrocchi, who believes that the ETS2 system (which primarily affects transport and construction – and, consequently, households as well) should also be completely overhauled, if not abolished. All these issues will be discussed during Cersaie’s opening conference, ‘Sustainable Energy for Competitiveness’, scheduled for tomorrow. For without a solution to these obstacles, companies’ efforts to remain competitive risk being in vain or severely undermined. ‘Our companies are constantly investing in research and innovation, but we are facing a problem that is currently insurmountable,’ concludes Ciarrocchi. ‘To date, there is no fuel that can replace natural gas for powering a kiln. We are looking with interest at alternatives such as biomethane, but until we have a viable alternative, we need a Europe that supports us, not one that penalises us. Otherwise, neither innovation, design nor ‘Made in Italy’ will be able to hold their own.”