Urso sees Tavares, the ‘Pact for the car’ on the table

The Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, will meet the CEO of Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, in Rome on Monday. At the basis of the discussion – according to what is learned from sources in the ministry – there will be the policy document on the Automotive sector drawn up with the presidents of the seven Regions in which there are plants of the group, the metalworkers’ unions, Anfia and the other associations of the ‘induced.
The minister has repeatedly said that he would like to reach a transition agreement with Stellantis that would commit the company and the government to a common policy of support for the Italian automotive industry. Urso – according to reports from the ministry – shared the call of the French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, who invited Tavares to show “a little patriotism” by bringing the production of small electric cars like the Peugeot back to France e-208. Also according to Urso, it is necessary to increase the production of cars in Italy to respond to demand, perhaps stimulated, to support the transition to sustainable cars and the Italian plants of the group must be valorised. All this within “a clear industrial policy framework” that the government is ready to put in place: the basis is the document agreed with all the interested parties that Urso will show to Tavares. This is a basis for discussion, on which the comparison will continue at the Automotive table at the ministry which will meet again between August and September.
It is not the first time that the minister has seen Tavares: in fact, he has already met him at the inauguration of the Acc battery factory in France. On that occasion he also met the president of Stellantis, John Elkann, whom he then met again in Rome. Positive discussions also developed with French Minister Le Maire, first in Paris at the beginning of December and then in the context of the common policy at the Rome summit which kicked off the working groups between Italy and France on industrial policy.
The unions are also looking forward to Monday’s meeting. “We would have liked Tavares to meet the trade unions first and then the minister. It will be a cordial meeting, but I fear that once again the issues that need to be resolved will not be addressed” says the secretary general of Uilm, Rocco Palombella, “We hope that Stellantis and the government decide to sit down seriously at a table to talk about real production and not gardens” jokes Barbara Tibaldi, secretary of the national Fiom.