It was not the assembly of ritual demands. But there was no frontal clash with the government either. Emanuele Orsini (in the photo) chose a different path: to build a political-industrial agenda and try to impose it simultaneously in Rome and Brussels. With a clear warning: without a turnaround on energy, investments, and competitiveness, Italy and Europe risk deindustrialization.
From the stage of the Nuvola, in front of President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the president of Confindustria alternated collaborative tones and very harsh messages. Some reprimands to the government, many to the European Union. But above all a cross-party political request: to stop turning industry, energy, and growth into an electoral battleground.
This is probably the true core of Confindustria’s 2026 assembly.
THE PACT ORSINI ASKS OF POLITICS
“Our call for responsibility must not become a political battleground but a platform for dialogue.” This is the phrase that, not by chance, received the strongest applause from the audience.
Orsini insisted on the concept several times. At the end of the assembly, he reiterated it: “The fundamental things must not become electoral battles.”
Confindustria fears, in short, that energy, industry, ecological transition, and investments will be sucked into the permanent electoral campaign. And it tries to build a bipartisan ground on some priorities considered no longer postponable.
It is no coincidence that Orsini spoke of “national responsibility” and growth at 2% as a “necessary but possible” goal. The appeal is directed both to the majority and the opposition. It also contains an implicit criticism of the last twenty-five years in Italy: “Collectively we have not done enough,” said the industrial leader.
The comparison is harsh: in the last 25 years Italy has grown on average by 0.4% annually, compared to 2.1% in the United States. Hence the appeal to remove industry and energy from the permanent political guerrilla warfare and to build a cross-party agreement at least on the major economic choices.
THE FIVE LEVERS OF THE “INDUSTRIAL PACT”
Orsini’s speech revolved around five levers: energy, dimensional growth of SMEs, development and innovation contracts, simplifications with reform of Law 231, and new resources for growth.
It included almost the entire economic platform of Confindustria: targeted incentives to grow companies, new industrial investments, extension of super-depreciations also to software, cloud, and artificial intelligence, support for the South, mobilization of private savings, and revision of public spending.
The new cycle of super-depreciations, Orsini recalled, should accompany industrial investments at least until 2028.
Hence also the request to mobilize Italian private savings: over 1,500 billion euros of families remain “parked” in bank deposits and, according to the industrialists, moving even just 1% of that towards companies would generate 15 billion euros of new investments.
Among Confindustria’s proposals is also the reallocation of 20 billion without increasing debt: one third to growth, one third to healthcare, and one third to education, through a revision of tax expenditures and public spending.
The common thread is always the same: fewer constraints and more capital to boost investments and growth.
Among the more technical points is also the request to reform Law 231 on the administrative responsibility of companies, that is, the system that makes companies responsible for certain crimes committed by managers or employees. For Confindustria, a framework born to combat corruption has progressively turned into a factor of regulatory uncertainty and bureaucratic burden.
ENERGY AS AN “EXISTENTIAL THREAT”
But the issue that now obsesses Italian industry is the cost of energy. And the crisis in the Middle East, with the risk linked to the Strait of Hormuz, brings back the nightmare of new energy shocks just as companies ask the government and institutions for stability and sustainable costs.
Orsini used very strong words: “For companies, the price of energy is now a true existential threat.” Behind these words is the fear that part of Italian manufacturing cannot withstand another spike in energy prices. Indeed, the head of Confindustria directly linked the energy issue to the risk of relocation and industrial desertification.
The response, in the reasoning of the industrialists, cannot be just one. A mix of sources is needed, but above all speed is needed. This is where Orsini sent the strongest signal to politics.
THE RENEWABLES GAME AND THE CLASH OVER SUITABLE AREAS
Even before nuclear power, the president of Confindustria sent a clear message about renewables. And especially against the authorization paralysis.
According to Orsini, Italy continues to slow down its own energy transition. The industrial leader asked to “return energy to the exclusive competence of the State,” denouncing regional and local resistance on suitable areas for photovoltaic and wind power.
This is a central point. Because here Confindustria is not blaming radical environmentalism or Brussels, but the Italian institutional system. The target is territorial vetoes, conflicts between administrative levels, and bureaucratic slowness that blocks already authorized plants.
The numbers cited by Confindustria tell the dimension of the problem: Italy is stuck at about 85 gigawatts installed, but another 50 are needed within four years. Meanwhile, more than 4,000 requests are still awaiting a response, over 131 gigawatts are bogged down in authorization procedures, and part of the already installed capacity has not been connected to the grid.
If the country really wants cheaper energy and strategic independence, according to Confindustria it must stop sabotaging renewables with endless procedures and local conflicts.
It is also for this reason that Orsini insisted so much on the need for ‘simplifications’ and on replicating the ZES model. The single ZES of the South, according to the industrialists, shows that when authorizations and times are compressed, investments really arrive. The president of the industrialists cited the almost 1,300 single authorizations issued in just over two years, with over 55 billion euros of economic impact and about 60,000 jobs both direct and indirect.
The reply from Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin came almost in real time. After Orsini’s request to return energy under the exclusive competence of the State, Pichetto spoke of “a question of institutional and constitutional architecture” and admitted that “there are regions that resist more than others.”
NUCLEAR POWER AND THE ALLIANCE WITH MELONI
On nuclear power, the dialogue with Palazzo Chigi appears more advanced. Companies are even ready to host small modular reactors “in our plants and in our districts,” Orsini assured.
This is by no means a secondary point. Confindustria is indeed trying to remove nuclear power from the ideological battleground and bring it back into that of industrial competitiveness. Orsini says it without beating around the bush: claiming that nuclear power is unnecessary because it requires long times is “false.”
The reasoning is clear: renewables are needed, but they are not enough. Energy-intensive industry demands production continuity, predictable prices, and strategic autonomy. Hence the idea of nuclear power as an industrial infrastructure and not just an energy one.
On this, Meloni, in her speech, took the political cue. She promised the delegated law by summer and defined the return to nuclear power as “an achievable goal.”
THE ATTACK ON BRUSSELS AND THE WAR ON ETS
But while Orsini avoided a frontal clash with Palazzo Chigi, the Confindustria president’s assault moved mainly to the EU. “Brussels does not understand what competitiveness means,” he said. And again: “China is colonizing our markets.”
Since the start of the current European Commission’s mandate, the head of Viale dell’Astronomia recalled, continental manufacturing has lost about 250,000 direct jobs and almost one million in the supply chain.
The main target is especially Europe of recent years: mountains of rules, green transition managed ideologically, and an industrial policy judged practically nonexistent.
The main target remains the ETS system. Confindustria openly calls for its suspension because decarbonization has become “a product of financial speculation” with “disastrous effects.” It is not only a technical controversy. Industrialists now consider ETS one of the factors pushing parts of manufacturing industry out of Europe. For this reason, Orsini evoked the danger of an “industrial desert.”
The European green transition, in short, would have ended up dumping disproportionate costs on continental companies without creating a real global competitive advantage.
For Orsini, proof of an already “lunar” European bureaucracy is also the 72 conditions imposed by Brussels to approve the Italian Energy Bill.
On this front, the government shows harmony with Confindustria. The prime minister spoke of the EU as “a bureaucratic giant” that sacrificed competitiveness to ideological and technocratic approaches. And she defined ETS as “a paradoxical tax.”
But a distance between Palazzo Chigi and Confindustria remains evident. Orsini pushes for a new season of common European debt to finance industrial policy, energy, and strategic technologies, convinced that without shared instruments Europe risks further fragmentation. Meloni, instead, remains more cautious: she mainly aims at greater flexibility and a different use of existing resources, without really opening the front of new common European instruments.
THE SALARY ISSUE AND THE GOVERNMENT’S SILENCE
But the most slippery part of the assembly comes when Orsini touches on the issue of wages. And he does so with words that, spoken from the Confindustria stage, weigh heavily: “In Italy the wage issue remains open. We alone, with our best contracts, cannot solve it.”
It is a political message. Because the president of the industrialists directly links low wages, youth flight, low birth rates, and weakness of domestic demand. Essentially: wages that are too low are no longer just a social problem, but an economic brake for the country and for the companies themselves.
Orsini thus tries to shift the debate out of the usual business versus unions framework. Not by chance he insists on the fight against “pirate contracts,” accused of compressing wages and rights, and relaunches the role of contracts signed by the most representative organizations.
But right here also emerges the clearest crack in the dialogue between Confindustria and the government. Because Meloni, in her long speech, practically does not address the wage issue. A silence that the CGIL seizes immediately. “Orsini said wages are low, but the prime minister did not talk about it,” attacks Maurizio Landini.
The message from Confindustria, in the end, is simple: without a real industrial policy, Europe risks turning into a market for other countries’ industries.
