"We are increasingly convinced that the game of industry survival is being played in Brussels," Gozzi said. "There is a great choice to be made to avoid the geopolitical, economic and industrial uselessness of Europe in a world that is changing at supersonic speeds." He stressed the need to start all over again in Europe, putting industry back at the center of the political agenda, adjusting environmental policy and moving away from the complications of the Green Agreement, the mechanism for adjusting carbon limits and ETS quotas.
To guarantee the future of the Italian and European steel industry, Gozzi continued, it is necessary to use Four factors:
- fair conditions in international trade;
- technological neutrality in the energy transition with a more pragmatic and less ideological approach;
- competitive energy prices, especially renewable or decarbonized;
- increased availability of ferrous scrap and other metals (e.g. DRI).
In a scenario in which Italy's steel production is 90 percent electric arc-based, the Green Deal attempts seem to have "produced very few results," Gozzi said. "The growing emissions in the world are 10-20 times higher than the volumes reduced at the European level," and "the ideological and extremist regulation of the Union has instead made a decisive contribution to the loss of competitiveness and market share of many sectors of European industry, without gaining any technological advantages in any sector of the green economy," he said
The President of the Federation also stressed the need to review the rules of international trade, especially guarantees, a request to which the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stephane Sejournay, responded positively, promising a timely review to protect the European and Italian steel industries from global overcapacity, as "Italian steel is of strategic importance to the European Union"- He said.
Finally, Gozzi stressed that among the many critical challenges facing the Italian steel industry, it is necessary to distinguish between the Ilva crisis and the crisis of the steel industry and reaffirmed the commitment of the Federation to support
