electricity Prodi and Bonaccini
The superflop of luxury electric cars in Reggio Emilia. The constant slippages from schedules, announcements from local politicians, thousands of promised jobs. The deputy Gianluca Vinci (FdI): “The plant must be built but it is still a mega field of weeds”. Here comes the Gdf…
Da superauto is a super flop.
It was supposed to be an operation of unprecedented global power, that of the electric ‘super cars’ based in Reggio Emilia, with the enthusiastic blessing of the former president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi from Reggio, and the scenes of jubilation of the governor Bonaccini.
Municipality and Region predicted that there could be about 5,000 new guaranteed jobs between internal employees and related industries. “They have to give us the Nobel Peace Prize”they enthusiastically declared during the presentation, “for having succeeded in bringing the United States and China together”.
The Chinese-American company Silk Faw said it was ready to invest over 1.3 billion euros in Emilia Romagna, in the so-called Motor Valley. What a hit guys! The supercar would have been specially designed by the automotive legend Walter De Silva: the S9, with a V8 engine, 4 liters of displacement, 1,400 horsepower. Planned mega sheds, hotels and commercial towers in compendium. The only place in the world where electric luxury cars of the same size are produced is Oxfordshire, England.
Bonaccini he had guaranteed the project 4.5 million in public funding, plus the same number from the Municipality of Reggio Emilia as missing urbanization costs. An unexpected bridge between Beijing and Washington these days. Prodi: “It is a very important decision for our country”.
But after the announcements with great fanfare in October 2021, little is seen.
Over time nothing happens. Thus the doubts grow, to the point that the lawyer and parliamentarian of Brothers of Italy Gianluca Vinci wonders how so many announcements were possible when the land of Gavassa, near Reggio Emilia, where the headquarters was to be built was still an uncultivated field of weeds. The parliamentarian presents a complaint also because the lack of international notoriety of the Chinese company and the possible debts of the US partner transpire, with a statement by the American Consob about the high risk of the bonds issued by the latter.
“Let the judiciary intervene to clarify who these people are” asks the deputy, “there is a lot of public and private money at stake. If things were not as they tell us we would be faced with the amateurism of politics and administration, this beyond the good faith or otherwise of the entrepreneurial interlocutors”.
The Prosecutor of Reggio Emilia, with the prosecutor Piera Giannusa, opens a file, instructing the Economic-Financial Police Unit of the Fiamme Gialle to carry out tax assessments on the operation. The investigation is against unknown persons.
The company has never even purchased the land under option for the settlement.
Today comes the end. A managerial act by the Bonaccini junta sanctions the withdrawal of the 4.5 million euros. It’s over before it starts. The Emilia-Romagna Region resolves the settlement agreement with a resolution. Finally, he tears up the agreement signed on April 27, 2022 for the mega production pole also on the will of Silk-Faw who would have given up on the project.
Luxury ends up in a ditch, probably full of weeds.
Vinci: “It was an operation that immediately had strange implications, a joint Chinese and American company that had to build luxury cars right next to the largest biogas waste disposal plant was sincerely singular. The fact that Romano Prodi and Stefano Bonaccini had repeatedly stated that it was a great opportunity for Reggio he never reassured me about the success of the operation, so much so that Brothers of Italy was the only party not to vote in favor of changing the intended use of that area”.
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