As part of the ALIS talk, the Managing Director of the SMET Group, Domenico De Rosa, spoke to bring his own contribution together with the Director General of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Francesco Tufarelli, the former undersecretary Salvatore Margiotta and the professor of the Roma Tre University, Francesca Faggioni, for an interesting discussion on transport.

Not everyone is optimistic, Dr. De Rosa: is it justified to be a little St. Thomas on the use of money?

«We start, however, from an unfavourable history. The Recovery contribution is certainly an important one, but not a very important one for what we suffered with the 2020 pandemic wave. As a country system, 200 billion does not change the state of the country compared to where it was before, in February 2020, with a deep recession. The second aspect: I think it should be stressed that a lot of this money is debt money. So an error in the management of this money will lead companies and in general the generation that will follow to fill another gap that would become insurmountable: we are gambling with the future of Italy».

Therefore, either they are funds capable of triggering positive economies or in the end they risk being just another debt.

«They must necessarily be a lever: around the contribution of the reform and the economic stimulus that this money must provide, there must be private funds. One euro spent by the state must channel at least two or three private euros so that this economy can shine again».

Do you believe this will happen?

«I have to believe so, let’s contribute to make it happen. Otherwise, without the hope that this will happen, we will all have to stop».

Have businesses in southern Italy been supported enough or has the support given to businesses in southern Italy been less than in the north?

«Southern Italy does not want to be trailed. Southern Italy has a great capacity to support the country. If you do not invest from the South, the whole of Italy cannot emerge, especially in moments like these of restart».

Businesses have costs in this complex phase of transition. How can you solve these problems on your own? Is there a need for the state to help businesses so that the flywheel can be set in motion?

«The issue of energy transition is high on the world’s agendas. What businesses are saying loud and clear is that it cannot be tackled with ideology, and it cannot be addressed in a way that is divorced from the industrial and social contexts of countries. Italy in the 2030 and 2050 reduction package are in some cases transformations that would lead to the death of entire industrial sectors. So if there is that, there is no industry, there is no economy, and the economy is made through companies. In transport, especially in ALIS, we would like the policy to interpret the measures, not only in the medium and long term as the decarbonisation, but that we could actually support industrial policies and transport, such as the shift bonus through the incentive Marebonus and Ferrobonus that, instead, we see penalized this year and in the future. As ALIS, we asked for funds to be implemented to effectively stimulate emission reductions, because atmospheric reductions cannot be achieved just by switching from endothermic to electric engines – and here too the issue is not yet technically settled – while we have certified that the modal shift of transport is certainly impactful, not only in terms of CO2 emissions, but also for the infrastructures, which in our country are enormously fragile».