“We strongly reiterate the need to intervene immediately and in a structural way on the emergency of energy prices: this situation is unsustainable for our companies”. The position taken by the vice president of the Biellese Industrial Union, Paolo Barberis Canonico, is clear and urgent, after the table convened by the Mise on energy price increases, in which Confindustria presented some concrete economic proposals, to be implemented immediately and necessarily shared at interministerial at Palazzo Chigi.
Among the many proposals to be considered with the utmost urgency are the sale of national gas production to industrial sectors for 10 years with anticipation of the financial benefits for the year 2022; the extension of the abatement of parafiscal charges for power commitments above 16.5 KW in the electricity sector and the reshaping of the subsidy rates for the parafiscal components of the electricity bill within the limits set by European legislation. “Manufacturing companies are facing an exorbitant increase in energy costs – adds the vice president of the UIB – which puts at serious risk not only the economic recovery after the crisis generated by the pandemic, but also the very survival of many activities: industrial processing. they require significant energy consumption which, to date, entail very high costs. The very fact of keeping the plants running involves high costs, which erode an already reduced marginality. The most worrying aspect is that we do not have a prospect of exiting this dynamic of price increases, the trend of the energy market is an uncontrollable variable. For these reasons, spot measures are not decisive: targeted, urgent and structural interventions are needed ».
According to the data processed by Confindustria, the current energy scenarios entail an increase in costs for the supply of energy for Italian manufacturing, which go from about 8 billion in 2019 to over 20 billion in 2021 and over 37 billion in 2022. This is a an increase in the total cost of 350% in 2021 and 650% compared to the costs of 2020. The Biella area makes no difference: the anomalous trend of the markets in the year 2021 means that the majority of companies today are exposed to expensive energy. The holding of entire production chains, including subcontractors, is at risk. “As Uib – concludes Barberis Canonico – we continue to support companies in this complex phase to face the emergency”.