Brussels – The household appliance industry must be considered “just as strategic as the automotive sector,” said the Minister for Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, today, 28 May, ahead of the European Union’s Competitiveness Council. The key sticking point is the Swedish multinational Electrolux, which on 11 May announced its intention to close a factory, cut production, and reduce its workforce in Italy by almost 40 per cent. “I have asked that this important household appliance sector also be considered strategic, like the automotive industry, so that we can implement a European plan for the white goods sector and put safeguard measures in place,” the minister said during a meeting with journalists. The aim is to “ensure a more level playing field in the face of unfair Asian competition and to support business investment.” To achieve this, Urso explained that he will present to the Commission “a non-paper – a policy document – that will enable the implementation of a European plan for the household appliance sector, similar to what is being attempted with the automotive sector.”
The Minister for Enterprise did not hold back in his criticism of European industrial policy. “If the EU within a few months, is forced to present ten omnibus packages, to present the revision of the CO2 regulation and the revision of the ETS, as well as dozens of other reform proposals, it means that Europe has got it wrong,” he observed. For Urso, energy, economic, and industrial policy must be “radically changed in every respect because Europe thought it was living in a world without conflict” while “the world we live in is very different from what we had hoped for.” The request, Urso summarised, is that Europe “should not prevent individual states from implementing an industrial policy” and that it should focus on “what our continent really needs, leaving states free to operate as they see fit to achieve the same objectives.” In this context, “we are confident that the European Commission understands that Europe has run out of time,” he pointed out in response to a question on Italy’s request for flexibility regarding the Stability Pact to address energy disruptions. “We expect a solution that is sustainable, one that allows us to use resources to tackle what is clearly a major emergency” because “we believe it is absolutely necessary that energy be considered on a par with defence and security on our continent, and I believe that citizens fully understand this,” he stressed.
This is not the first time the Italian minister has spoken out against EU policies. When Electrolux announced its redundancy plan, affecting around 1,700 employees, Urso described it as “unacceptable” and linked the sector’s difficulties to “the ideological choices of the Green Deal” and to Chinese competition in the European household appliances market. He reiterated this point to journalists again this morning before the Competitiveness Council meeting: “In this sector too, we are facing an invasion of Asian products” which are “flooding the European market like a tsunami.”
Actually, the decline in production began before the Green Deal was approved. On 25 May, Urso then convened the Electrolux working table, including the company, trade unions, Confindustria, the regions, and the local councils where the group’s plants are located. Here, he described the company’s plan as “unacceptable, both due to the lack of adequate industrial prospects and the impact it would have on employment,” without, however, putting forward a concrete proposal.
A new round of talks is scheduled for 15 June. In the meantime, Electrolux has given an undertaking to the trade unions not to relocate production or begin redundancies before further discussions take place. Yesterday, however, the workers’ representatives at a hearing in the Chamber of Deputies announced that twin production lines – mirroring those at Cerreto d’Esi (in the province of Ancona, in the Marche region), the plant that the company wishes to close – have already been set up in Poland.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
