In an editorial published in the Italian newspaper Il Foglio, Antonio Gozzi, industrialist and president of the Italian steel manufacturers association Federacciai, presented a critical analysis of the current economic and industrial downturn in Europe.
The decline of Europe
The document opens with the observation that, although the world has changed radically, Europe is not keeping up. To describe the recession of the last 20 years, Mr. Gozzi cites data on the decline in European GDP since 2005, the presence of only one European company in the ranking of the 25 most valuable companies in the world, and the seemingly irreparable technological gap with the United States and China in key sectors such as AI, biotechnology, and space.
According to Gozzi, this failure occurred despite a history of favorable conditions (a rich market, modest interest rates, and cheap energy), due to a "custodial technocracy" that imposed a mainstream environmental and anti-industrial agenda and excessive regulations that discourage investment and increase bureaucracy.
Criticism of the ETS system
The entire section of the editorial is devoted to the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the need for its radical revision. "The time has come for an objective, in-depth, non-propagandistic assessment of the real long-term effects of this system, which is based solely on rules and penalties rather than incentive mechanisms." The evidence suggests that Europe
