The most deafening silence is that of Maurizio Landini (photo above), general secretary of CGIL and leader of the metalworkers union Fiom. There is not a word or a single criticism against the French-Dutch holding company Stellantis, which, after absorbing the Italian-American dream of Fiat, is gradually dismantling the last Italian automotive legacy bequeathed by Sergio Marchionne and partially financed by all of them. Also thanks to the thousands of hours of layoffs that the State paid for with our taxes.

We definitely need a brief summary of the previous episodes. Stellantis, the Netherlands-based company headed by John Elkann, who inherited the Fiat empire from his grandfather Giovanni Agnelli, has listed the Turin Maserati factory in Grugliasco for sale on Immobiliare.it (photo below), the portal specializing in offers. for homes, apartments, offices and shops. Marchionne, the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, who died suddenly in 2018, is the manager who reactivated the group with the Italian-US merger and wanted to transfer luxury car production to Grugliasco. This must have been the calling card of his operation, so much so that the facility at Corso Allamano 44, currently for sale, was even named the Avvocato Giovanni Agnelli Factory.

How to earn 4 billion in just one year?

Without exaggerating too much, given the family’s international fame at the time, getting rid of the industrial fortress Grugliasco is like Pope Francis putting St. Peter’s Basilica on Immobiliare.it to deal with his crisis of faith. But for Italy the situation is even worse: because it shows that this line of design and engineering has been euthanized, even if supported by state subsidies that have provided jobs for millions of Italians for decades and written a chapter of customs history. and ensured that we were not last in the global industrial panorama. In fact, the rule is not to keep industries open to putting products. First of all, you need to have profitable ideas and turn them into models. Industries sustain themselves accordingly. Without ideas, without models, despite a period full of innovations and opportunities to switch to engines other than gasoline and diesel, the Italian miracle is over.

CGIL secretary Maurizio Landini says nothing about all this. In fact, he said something as reported by our Gioele Urso in the pages of TorinoToday: “We have asked for meetings with Stellantis to discuss general preferences and to date there has been no such meeting – these are Landini’s words. The government is not making enough efforts. We had a meeting and they told us that negotiations were continuing and that they would present an agreement that would enable the production of 1 million cars in our country by July and August. There is no trace of this.” It’s as if the new models of Maserati, Alfa Romeo and Fiat were designed by Giorgia Meloni. That’s it?

The French state is Elkann’s partner, not the Italian government

But the story cannot be archived among classic industrial crises. Because Stellantis chairman John Elkann is not in crisis at all. His family’s holding company, Exor NV, moved its headquarters to the Netherlands to take advantage of tax benefits, according to the Turin newspaper Print It made a consolidated profit of 4.2 billion euros in 2022 and 1.7 billion euros in 2021.

Stellantis was born on January 16, 2021, and its majority shareholder is Exor NV with 14.3 percent, Peugeot with 7.13 percent and the French state with 6.13 percent. Thus, after the sale of the Italian brands and factories, the Elkann-Agnelli family earned a total of $5.9 billion in two years: almost six times the investment that Sergio Marchionne made to successfully relaunch the factory in Grugliasco, which was put up for sale in 2013. Maserati models produced today at the Mirafiori factory in Turin. Obviously an entrepreneur is an entrepreneur. And if he can win, he wins. The problem is that unions and government are failing to fulfill their roles.

The silence of the CGIL secretary general was commented on by Action leader, former economic development minister Carlo Calenda. page on -. But Italy is not a normal country, and Landini therefore avoids comparison, preferring the pages of Repubblica where it talks about the automotive crisis without any mention of Stellantis.” The underlying fact is that John Elkann is now also the owner and publisher of the newspaper. RepublicDedicated on Sunday, October 1 meetingA full page article to the CGIL secretary with the following headline: “Assistant salaries, forgotten pensions. The government is selling the Trevi Fountain.”

Economic Development Minister Luigi Di Maio in Giuseppe Conte’s first government and then-Interior Minister and now Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini (pictured above, LaPresse) also extolled the virtues of the Stellantis plan. . This was the moment when Italian politicians, unlike the French with Peugeot, stopped intervening in Fiat Chrysler Automotive (FCA) losing its Italianity.

And Matteo Salvini said: “Fiat employees are in safe hands”

Italianness is a theme that Salvini attaches particular importance to today. His words at the time were: “FCA will continue to be in safe hands, there will be no problems for workers or the future of the company. They have nothing to fear” (Il Sole 24 Ore, 23 July 2018). And from the same article, Di Maio’s moral support for the Franco-Dutch pact is as follows: “We should be worried, and at the same time I want to reassure everyone that Italy is a country that will invest in the automotive sector and above.” all electric”. Three years later, when the birth of Stellantis was announced, it was the Minister of Economic Development 5-Star Stefano Patuanelli: in a joint statement with his French counterpart, he declared that the two governments “will attach importance to employment and warmly welcome this development of the merger”. With Mario Draghi coming to government as of February 13, 2021, the same ministry passed to Northern League member Giancarlo Giorgetti, who is now Minister of Economy. In short, Maurizio Landini’s silence is a good thing.

As promised, the Paris government paid attention to employment: the employment of French workers, of course. In 2022, France is actually the fourth largest automaker in Europe, with just over a million models a year (graph above, source statista.com). The first is Germany with 3 million 480 thousand. Spain ranks second with 1 million 785 thousand. While the Czech Republic ranked third, Italy fell to ninth place with 473 thousand vehicles, behind Romania and just ahead of Russian production. In 2000, we ranked fifth in Europe with the production of 1 million 422 thousand automobiles. China, on the other hand, has increased its production from 604 thousand to 21 million since the beginning of the millennium and produced 407 thousand machines. In the world, this number increased from 41.2 million to 57 million (Oica data, International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers).

The reduced production of polluting cars in Italy could be excellent news. The problem is that if we do not replace the old engines with new dials and new models, we will lose more positions. And thus thousands of jobs. The future predicted by Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares may also be traumatic due to the rapid transition to electric and hydrogen engines imposed by European Union policy. “We must not lose sight of the fact that there will be social consequences and that we risk losing the middle class, which will no longer be able to afford cars,” Tavares said. Corriere della Sera.

Stellantis has already rewarded French workers

Less than three years after the merger between FCA and Peugeot, the comparison within Stellantis is already in France’s favour. Between 2024 and 2026, 13 new models will be produced in Italy, compared to 24 models for French factories. There is one facility in Italy (in Turin Mirafiori) and five in France for the assembly of hybrid or electric cars. We are also losing competition for the patents obtained by Stellantis: 166 Italian, 1239 French. It is no coincidence that the French state decided to become the third partner of the industrial group: the Italian government is still considering it. There is also the dramatic demographic crisis that will hit Italy harder than France if new immigrant workers from abroad are not trained and brought in legally. However, it seems unlikely that Giorgia Meloni’s government will change its stance on this issue, as it is a prisoner of its ideological cage.

We therefore face the risk of giving up 18 percent of gross domestic product over the next eighteen years. Economy Minister Giorgetti said this. And if you were Elkann or Tavares, would you invest your money in a market that no longer had enough workers, technicians, and managers and was doomed to lose eighteen percent of its value? Dear Landini, dear Salvini, stop arguing about the Friday strikes. And finally, deal with the Italian industry. The future that Minister Giorgetti described as impressive is already here.

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