The extra costs of the energy emergency amount to 40 billion: “The impact is devastating with the risk of deindustrialisation and a threat to national security.” This is the alarm in the face of the levels reached by gas and electricity prices launched by the presidents of the Confindustria of Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto, Annalisa Sassi, Francesco Buzzella, Marco Gay and Enrico Carraro who met the councilors to the Economic Development of the four regions Vincenzo Colla, Guido Guidesi, Andrea Tronzano and Roberto Marcato. “Time has expired and a decision in the EU in this sense can no longer be postponed,” they say.
A cry of alarm to which is added the voice of Roberto Grassi, president of the Union of Industrialists of the Province of Varese (Confindustria Varese): «The situation which has already been critical for months – he said – has now become unsustainable. We are on the edge of an abyss. There is no more time to waste ».
The worst case scenario: 40 billion in extra costs
From 2019 to 2022 – explain the presidents of the Northern Confindustria – the total costs of electricity and gas incurred by the industrial sector of the four regions amounted to about 4.5 billion euros, while in 2022 the extra costs will reach – in the hypothesis more optimistic than the price trend – a share of around 36 billion euros which could be even higher than 41 billion in the worst price scenario.
Sassi, Buzzella, Gay and Carraro underline that “companies cannot wait a day longer for the measures necessary to calm the prices of gas and electricity”. The Confindustria of Emilia Romagna, Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto appreciated “the sensitivity and attention of the Regions, which agreed on the severity of the emergency and the unsustainability of the situation, and in order to avoid dramatic economic and social repercussions invite all political forces, even in this phase of the electoral campaign, to firmly support the commitment of the government in office in the difficult negotiations with other countries at European level for the introduction of a gas price cap ».
I applaud you for a timely intervention
In line with the appeal of the national president Carlo Bonomi, the presidents underline that the situation has “characteristics of extraordinary and urgent urgency, because it is impossible to maintain production with such a cost differential compared to other countries (EU and non-EU) of ours. competitors, with the effect of hitting not only direct exporting companies, but also the entire production chain, with a heavily negative effect on intermediate small and medium-sized enterprises in the supply chain. A further effect is the cancellation of the post-pandemic economic revival, in particular in the repercussions on territories that are experiencing a dramatic erosion of competitiveness compared to other neighboring countries. It is now clear that every resource must be assigned primarily to this emergency ».