Alarming rise in production costs for Italy’s ceramic and glass companies: top quality ‘Made in Italy’ products under threat
15.3.2022
Question for written answer E-001016/2022
to the Commission
Rule 138
Mara Bizzotto (ID)
The 40 companies in the famous fine arts ceramics district in Nove (Vicenza province) may be forced to close due to gas prices tripling and a shortage of raw materials. The industrial ceramics district of Sassuolo (Modena) is also worried about the untenable price of gas, predicting that its 2021 gas bill of EUR 250 million will shoot up in 2022 to EUR 1.2 billion (+400 %).
Giovanni Savorani, President of Confindustria Ceramica, denounces the deadly combination of an explosion in energy prices and the impossibility of bringing about the energy transition so desired by the EU, which does not take into account the virtuosity of Italy’s ceramics industry, which is a model for efficiency and sustainability. The artistic and industrial glass sectors are also high energy consumers: the 60 historic glass furnaces in Murano in Venice, for example, will not be able to withstand a rise in gas prices that goes from two to eight million euro a year.
The war in Ukraine will just make an already unbearable situation even worse for glass and ceramics companies, which provide thousands of jobs. Given this and the fact that the energy transition cannot simply wipe out entire sectors of production:
- 1.What urgent measures will the Commission take to support Italy’s glass and ceramics companies, which are showcases of ‘Made in Italy’ top-quality products?
- 2.Will it review the energy transition strategy bearing in mind those craft and industrial production sectors in which high energy consumption is a necessity?