“Not only has the price of the bill quadrupled in one year, but the costs of natural gas have even increased by over 600%. Thus our companies will go out of business: we will have solved the problem of CO2 emissions at the source but the country will find itself managing a social drama, with thousands of unemployed workers. Energy accounts for at least a quarter of manufacturing costs in the ceramic industry and it is clear to everyone that a manufacturing sector cannot pass on similar cost increases downstream, least of all when it competes globally like us, who export beyond Italy. 80% of the tile production ».
The drop that breaks the camel’s back
He is not only alarmed, Giovanni Savorani, president of Confindustria Ceramica, is furious in the face of the umpteenth straw that breaks the camel of expensive energy for a supply chain that employs over 30 thousand people in Italy, which risks being canceled by ideologues of the green transition who think they will cut 55% of greenhouse gases in eight years without having valid energy alternatives and by financial speculators who bet upwards on ETS quotas at the expense of those who produce real wealth and jobs.
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“The rise of all prices”
“We are in a vice that today makes the surge of all price lists unsustainable, from raw materials to pallets, from polystyrene to sea freight, triggered by the natural law of supply and demand in a moment of strong recovery of the global economy after the stop for the pandemic. Prometeia estimates that in the space of ten years, given the current context of regulations and costs, the Sassuolo district will have eliminated the margins », underlines Savorani.
“Inexplicable increases”
The price of gas went from 11 euros / MWh two years ago, to 5 euros in summer 2020 and then jumped last August to over 47 euros: “These are inexplicable and unsustainable increases that scare us – adds the president – just as we are afraid of regulations such as “Fit for 55” which make all the efforts made to date to make our ceramic industry a global model of efficiency and sustainability useless and the projects we are carrying out with technology manufacturers are useless. universities and research centers in Emilia-Romagna to achieve an energy transition that holds the environment and jobs together “.
Apply article 39 gas
The umpteenth increase in the bill makes the application of Article 39 gas even more urgent (i.e. the limitation of the application to gas-consuming companies of the general charges that are charged on consumption), a long-awaited intervention, which certainly does not solve the problem but it would reduce the cost by about 2 cents / mc, partially rebalancing the gap that Made in Italy ceramics discounts with respect to foreign competitors for parafiscal charges.