Deputy Premier and Transport Minister
Matteo Salvini said Saturday that Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares
should be ashamed for saying car production in Italy was too
expensive unless the government delivered fresh incentives for
the sector.
"The sector is in crisis in part because of him. The Stellantis
CEO should be ashamed and apologise," Salvini said in Milan.
"He is no longer in a position to ask for anything, given the
way they have mismanaged a historic Italian company," he said of
the company formed by the merger of Fiat-Chrysler with Peugeot.
"The CEO and management of Stellantis should apologise to the
workers, the engineers, the technicians, the Italians and the
history of Italian car-making".
Emanuele Orsini, the president of Italian industry association
Confindustria, was critical too.
"We need the production in Italy to be maintained," Orsini said
at a Young Entrepreneurs event in Capri.
"Asking for more incentives seems crazy to me to be honest.
"We need serious industrial plans, companies that are serious
about the country and that remain, of course, to build their
products in our country".
Italy's biggest trade union, the CGIL, called for the government
to take action to end uncertainty about the future of
Stellantis's plants in Italy.
"The situation 'is dramatic' and direct intervention by
premier's office is needed on Stellantis," CGIL Secretary
General Maurizio Landini told Radio 24.
"Stellantis has not been investing in recent years, not even in
research and development, and production in 2024 will fall below
300,000 vehicles for the first time since 1957.
"The company has only made cuts, shedding more than 12,000 jobs
in recent years and also cutting back on research and
development".
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