Stellantis, at the table the automotive knots and the strategy in defence of employment

The appointment is at 2 p.m. at Palazzo Piacentini, headquarters of the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy. The Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of the Economy will also be at the table, a sign that 'exceptional' defensive instruments will have to be put in place to protect employment and that it will be necessary to close the circle on the resources to be made available to the automotive sector. The anticipation for what will be decided at the Stellantis table is high, not least because the crisis in the sector is accelerating, with registrations at a standstill with respect to 2023, despite the billion in incentives, and production at minimum levels in Italy, with heavy repercussions on the companies in the allied industries.

Concrete actions and commitments are therefore needed, as the trade unions and companies have been demanding for days, and as Stellantis' number one in Europe, Jean Philippe Imparato, who will chair the table for Stellantis dedicated to the automotive sector, has also repeated. On the agenda are Stellantis' strategies for the Italian plants and the complex situation in the market and component industry. Anfia, the association of companies in the sector, expects 40,000 workers to be affected by the crisis as early as 2025. The trade unions speak of thousands of employees without redundancy funds already by the end of the first quarter of next year.

The meeting, which will also be attended by the presidents of the regions hosting Stellantis plants, will serve to make progress and seek concrete solutions, in a 2024 that confirms itself as a black year for the car market in Italy, as confirmed at its annual meeting in Rome by Unrae, the Association of Foreign Car Manufacturers. Despite a billion in incentives launched this year by the government, registration volumes, Unrae (the association of foreign car manufacturers) estimates, will remain at the levels of 2023, between 1.5 million and 1.5 million.

A market problem, therefore, as much as of industrial relevance, that of the automotive sector, with a series of issues that remain unresolved, starting with registrations - down 350,000 units compared to pre-Covid - to the low level of market penetration of electric or plug-in cars - about a third of the European average - and the question of charges and taxation borne by mobility, with VAT and the system of tax deductions for company cars 'frozen' in the 1970s. "What is needed for cars is an organic plan that looks as much at the market as at production," says Unrae chairman Michele Crisci.

The head of Europe at Stellantis, Imparato, has in recent days anticipated a series of commitments on Italian plants, such as the decision to assign Mirafiori the development and production of the new Fiat 500 family to be developed from 2029-30. The choices on Termoli and the Italian gigafactory project remain to be clarified, and in general, the role of the domestic production plants with respect to the future range of city cars to be developed by the Group, with the allocation of the Stla Small platform, for B-segment cars, and the Smart car architecture, for the city cars of the future.