Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa asks unions to help rewrite the European Green Deal. “The EU objectives are unrealistic”. The counter-offensive of the Italian car starts from Turin
Once upon a time there was the Green Deal. That green, hyper-virtuous and vaguely Nordic pact that promised Europe a clean, electric future and – not a secondary detail – inaccessible to most given the costs. Today, in Turin, Antonio Filosa, the new CEO of Stellantis asked the Italian unions for a hand in dismantling Brussels.
Not exactly a walk in the park. But that’s the case: “We need to change the EU rules on cars,” he said at the meeting held in the group’s Turin headquarters. The subtext is clear: the green rules must be reviewed, re-calibrated and possibly sent into early retirement with the abbreviated procedure, because in the meantime the factories (Italian, in particular) are languishing and customers – for a change – are not buying what they would like them to buy from Brussels.
Filosa is not a politician, but the speech sounded more like an MEP than a manager: «The objectives imposed by the Commission are too stringent, they have displaced both supply and demand. So nothing is relaunched. To do this, we need to change the rules, focus on technological neutrality, support small cars and review the targets on commercial vehicles that are “not achievable”. Words that couldn’t be clearer.
Now, asking unions to lobby with Brussels is an interesting move. The idea of a Fiom with a trolley in Rue de la Loi has its charm, but for the moment the trade unionists seemed more interested in their own problems. Or, rather, of Italian factories where activity continues in fits and starts and industrial plans are often more like good intentions than roadmaps with certain deadlines.
Yet, something is moving. Filosa confirmed that the “Italy Plan” exists, is solid, and is even on time. Stuff that would be worth uncorking a prosecco, if it weren’t for the fact that the structural problems all remain on the table. In Mirafiori, for example, the new hybrid Fiat 500 is arriving — finally. A car that could have (and perhaps should have) arrived at least two years ago, but which will begin production in November. And to accompany its birth, Stellantis also announced 400 hires, which – in today’s employment desert – almost sounds like a revolution.
“It’s not enough,” Filosa said, with appreciable sincerity. “But that’s all we could do.” Which, coming from someone who leads one of the largest automotive groups in the world, makes you think. Translation: we need to change the rules if we want to do more.
Production of the new Jeep Compass, another piece of the puzzle, begins in Melfi, while in Cassino time seems to have stopped. The transition to the STLA Large platform for the new Stelvio and the new Giulia is expected there. They were supposed to be electric but — surprise — now the hybrid version is also being evaluated. Evidently someone has realized that Italians still aren’t tearing their hair out over a 60,000 euro electric car with 300 km of theoretical autonomy and intermittent charging stations.
Result: the launch is postponed to 2027. Three years longer, but with the addition of an engine that perhaps will have some hope of ending up in production.
And then there is Termoli, the unsolved mystery. The Gigafactory of wonders was supposed to be built, the battery factory of the future in tricolor sauce, but everything is at a standstill. The joint venture ACC — Automotive Cells Company, the Franco-German-Italian creature for the production of batteries — is still a niche. A decision, Filosa said, will come “by the end of the year.” For now, the only certainty is that work is underway on a project to produce broadcasts. A big step back, in a supply chain that wanted to be at the forefront of the green revolution.
In short, between assumptions that are not enough, hybrid models that are long in coming and industrial plans with variable geometry, the real news of the day is that Stellantis has grown tired of the electric dogma imposed by Europe. And she’s not the only one. Behind Filosa’s words we can glimpse a deeper malaise: that of an industry that feels driven not by the market but by a political agenda that is more attentive to the climate of 2050 than to the unemployment of 2025.
So, after having exhausted the vocabulary of the ecological transition, it is now up to the unions – paradoxically – to help Stellantis do the dirty work: giving the car back an industrial, non-ideological logic. Maybe starting from Turin, where it all began. And where, at least for now, the only real “gigafactory” is that of good intentions.
