Italy: Industry calls for lower energy costs

Rome: Italy’s industry needs an urgent plan from the government to help reduce the high energy costs, which are higher than in other European countries, the president of the Italian business lobby, Confindustria, said on Tuesday.

“Our companies continue to incur energy costs that are more than 35% higher than the European average, and even 80% compared to some major industrialized European nations,” Emanuele Orsini said at Confindustria’s annual meeting.

High energy costs are weighing on Italy’s competitiveness, Orsini added.

Major economies in Western Europe – Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, have seen a surge in energy costs over the past three years. Economies in eastern and southeastern Europe suffered even more as energy prices have been higher than in Western Europe in recent months.

European competitiveness has been eroded in recent years by volatile and high energy prices, which are up to five times higher than those in the United States and China. The new tariffs from the U.S. are also hitting major European industries. Some European facilities face an existential threat after years of trying to cope with the high energy costs.

The Italian business is calling on the government to decouple the price of gas from the way electricity prices are calculated and for a return to nuclear power generation.

Earlier this year, the Italian government approved a proposal to begin drafting a series of laws that would ultimately lead to a return to nuclear power generation after more than four decades.

Italy halted nuclear reactors after a referendum in 1987, following the Chernobyl disaster a year earlier. In 2011, Italians again rejected the use of nuclear power in yet another referendum.

But Italy’s current government, led by Giorgia Meloni, said last year that it plans to adopt legislation to return to nuclear power with the latest generation of SMRs, as part of efforts to decarbonize industry.