{"id":454864,"date":"2026-05-26T18:06:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T16:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/05\/26\/orsini-sferza-ue-soffocati-da-assenza-competitivita-rischiamo-deserto-industriale\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T19:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T17:05:11","slug":"orsini-lambasts-the-eu-stifled-by-a-lack-of-competitiveness-we-risk-an-industrial-wasteland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/05\/26\/orsini-lambasts-the-eu-stifled-by-a-lack-of-competitiveness-we-risk-an-industrial-wasteland\/","title":{"rendered":"Orsini lambasts the EU: \u201cStifled by a lack of competitiveness, we risk an industrial wasteland\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rome – Europe must change course or face industrial decline<\/strong>. At the annual assembly, in the presence of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni<\/strong>, and the government, the president of Confindustria, Emanuele Orsini,<\/strong> lambasts Brussels, but also warns Rome: no Member State has the political and economic resources to \u201ctackle alone the challenges facing us\u2014geopolitical, technological, climatic and demographic.\u201d The United States and China, he points out, are tackling them with \u201cmassive public and private investment, including in the military sphere, and with protectionist policies.\u201d <\/p>\n

For industrialists, only the European dimension can weather the storm. Provided it recognises the importance of competitiveness. The president of the industrialists\u2019 association denounces a veritable \u201ccollapse of the industrial system\u201d over the last two years: \u201cHigh energy costs, a lack of investment and excessive regulations have stifled entrepreneurial initiative and eroded employment levels, throwing our markets wide open to Chinese products<\/strong>. We are suffocated by a lack of competitiveness and by fragilities that are growing by the day.\u201d Chinese (unfair) competition is a problem. Over 25 years, the EU\u2019s share of global GDP has fallen by around 7 percentage points: keeping its share of global GDP constant, Europe \u201chas lost over \u20ac7 trillion in GDP, most of which has gone to Chinese industry.\u201d Beijing remains \u201cthe only true industrial superpower.\u201d It alone accounts for 35 per cent of global manufacturing output, more than the other eight major industrialised nations combined: \u201cBut China plays by distorted rules and exports its own imbalances\u2014namely deflation and a lack of domestic demand\u2014to the rest of the world,\u201d Orsini makes clear. China is \u201ccolonising our markets; if the EU does not immediately support our industries, we will be forced into an industrial wasteland,\u201d says the entrepreneur. Europe must therefore act and react, focusing on three priority areas: \u201cA genuine single energy market; a genuine single market for capital and savings; shared debt to finance a genuine European industrial policy.\u201d <\/p>\n

For the confederation, the first step is to suspend the ETS<\/strong>, as a review would take too long. \u201cToday, the cleanest continent has the highest CO\u2082 price in the world: a cost that inflates citizens\u2019 bills and impacts industrial processes, pushing us out of the market,\u201d emphasises Orsini, who, to illustrate just how self-destructive this is, cites the automotive sector as an example, \u201cwith European manufacturers forced to buy CO2 emission certificates that enrich their American and Chinese competitors. It\u2019s absolute madness!\u201d he thunders. The number one priority remains tackling energy prices, a genuine \u201cexistential threat\u201d to businesses. In Italian factories, energy costs more than in the rest of Europe. This is down to \u201cdecisions made in the past to abandon nuclear power,\u201d or to the regions\u2019 current choices regarding renewables: the market is \u201ccompletely out of proportion<\/strong>.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

The proposal is to return energy to the \u201cexclusive remit of the State.\u201d The call to all political parties is to release suitable sites for large-scale solar and wind power plants (131 gigawatts are awaiting authorisation) and to give their full support to the bill on sustainable nuclear power, which has now reached the chamber. \u201cWe need the continuous, zero-emission power supply that renewables, while necessary, cannot guarantee. To keep claiming that nuclear power is useless because it takes 10\u201315 years to bring it online is false. Every year, every month that is lost is a waste,\u201d insists Orsini. He calls for trust and courage: \u201cLet us use it to continue building development, competitiveness, and opportunities. This is the only path capable of generating a future, social cohesion and widespread well-being.\u201d The solution, according to Confindustria, is to make choices that will return Italy to 2 per cent annual growth, <\/strong>\u201cgrowth that we consider not only necessary, but possible<\/strong>.\u201d 
In collaboration with
\nAgenzia Gea<\/a>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the annual general meeting, the president of Confindustria also issued a warning to Rome: no Member State has the political and economic resources to “tackle the challenges ahead on its own”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7309,"featured_media":454846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25705],"tags":[34236,26190,34237],"class_list":["post-454864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-assemblea","tag-confindustria-en-2","tag-orsini"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7309"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454865,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454864\/revisions\/454865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}