During the panel discussion “Rolling in the deep!” Are we at risk of industrial desertification in the EU?”, held during the EUROMETAL Southern Europe Meeting 2026 on 26 February in Milan, Franco Felisa (ESN, Electromechanics Synergy Network), Tommaso Sandrini (Assofermet, San Polo Lamiere), Typhoon Iseri (YİSAD/Çolakoğlu Metalurji) and Petr Sikorski (PUDS) discussed the growing risk of industrial desertification in Europe.
Franco Felisa opened the discussion with a clear analysis of current market pressures, highlighting that European companies must face raw material and energy costs that are 40-50 percent higher than global competitors. He even mentioned an extreme proposal that was already being circulated in mid-February, namely a coordinated, full-day closure of factories as an act of protest. “It’s painful to talk to Brussels,” he noted, adding, “they listen, but then ask you for numbers, as if they don’t live in the same reality.”
The same risk of industrial desertification is present in the Polish market, as emphasized by Piotr Sikorski, who said that this does not only apply to large producers. Sikorsky explained how the crisis has hit distribution: “There is not a single week when I don’t have a call from a distributor who is closing his lines or reducing his activity. Deindustrialization is not an idea hanging out there somewhere, but a continuous process. To stop this, we must actively focus on areas not represented by the government:
