Meloni’s taboos in the south pass through three letters: Zes

The rescue of the Whirlpool of Naples has highlighted a new perspective for the development of the South that can take place through the zes, Special economic zonesan acronym on paper until recently and has almost surprisingly become an instrument of industrial policy. The model, which banks and entrepreneurs like, represents a challenge for the Meloni government, which will have to demonstrate that it has no problems supporting it just because it is a legacy of the Gentiloni and Draghi executives.

In the Zes, bureaucratic simplification is already a reality because the commissioners act independently and in derogation from the procurement code, effectively anticipating the reform. In fact, it is thanks to the special powers exercised by the president of Zes Campania, Giuseppe Romano, that the Whirlpool operation was possible and “now – as he himself explains to Il Foglio – there are about forty requests for authorization to invest in the area Campania for a total of 1.3 billion of new entrepreneurial initiatives that can count on a bare-bones bureaucracy and on tax credits and tax reductions”.

Formally born in 2017, the Zes – eight in all distributed throughout the central-south, from Abruzzo to Sicily – remained a dead letter until 2021 when the Draghi government fished them out by inserting them in the Pnrr which allocated 630 million to equip these areas of the infrastructure necessary to attract new capital, following the example of what happens in countries such as Poland, France and the United States (although the most virtuous case of Zes is considered to be that of Shenzhen in China). The inauguration of the eight commissioners, appointed by Draghi on the proposal of the former minister of the South, Mara Carfagna, has put the Zes in a position to get out of the gray area and begin to operate according to methods – such as the digital one-stop shop – unprecedented in Italy: the classic 37 authorizations needed to start a production activity are grouped into a single permit which can be issued by the commissioner within fifteen days. A revolution not only for the South but for Italy which the first two major banks in the country immediately took notice of. It was the Intesa Sanpaolo group that financially supported the entrepreneur Felice Granisso when he came forward to take over the Whirlpool in via Argine, guaranteeing its employment levels. And a few days ago the UniCredit group brought together 60 entrepreneurs plus another 100 via video conference in Milan to explain the opportunity of the Zes, also in the presence of the eight commissioners. “We see value in this model and as a bank we feel strongly responsible for contributing to its success”, he explains to Foglio Remo Taricani, Deputy Head by UniCredit Italia, which has allocated a ceiling of 6 billion for companies that will invest in these areas as part of the broader “UniCredit for Italy” plan.

For Taricani, what makes the Zes attractive are not so much the tax breaks as the single authorization for investment projects which drastically reduces the implementation times. “I would say that this is what makes entrepreneurs’ eyes shine the most – he continues – We have therefore encountered a lot of interest and we will probably go to present the Zes in some European cities where the bank is present because we are confident in the possibility of attracting foreign investors as well. We want to try and understand if this model is scalable, that is if it can be applied to more areas and more sectors at a time when large multinationals are redefining the global value chain”. In short, the challenge would be that of a regionalization of the global supply chain, which in jargon is called “reshoring”. But even without going too far, the Zes, as Commissioner Romano explains, who in addition to Campania presides over the special economic zone of Calabria, can already count on concrete results. “We are receiving requests from all over Italy and also from multinationals, the Whirlpool model has proven to work for other local companies that risked being closed. This is the case, for example, of the former Meridbulloni of Castellammare di Stabia reborn in Acerra thanks to a company from Reggio Emilia, Sbe Varvit, which took it over following the simplified procedure envisaged by the Zes. But I could mention the Novartis initiative in Vibo Valentia and several others. In a very short time we managed to make our structure fully operational and, thanks to word of mouth, we receive requests for new contacts every day”. But what kind of dialogue do the Zes commissioners have with the government? Romano, who also has a coordination role in the eight areas, explains that the commissioners send a quarterly report to Palazzo Chigi on the activities carried out and that the government has a “monitoring and listening” role. Who knows if it is enough for the executive of Giorgia Meloni, who, by abolishing the ministry for the South, has effectively renounced the possibility of taking credit for the success of the Zes, if this model proves to be really effective. Today it is Raffaele Fitto’s Ministry of European Affairs, who also has the delegation for the South, that follows the commissioners’ activities remotely. And the moment in which he will be able to demonstrate whether he believes in it or not is not far away because, as observed by Francesco Tavassi, founder and president of the Terni logistics group and former vice president of the Naples industrial union. “Tax breaks are also important for entrepreneurs and on this point we need more certainty. The tax credit provided for companies investing in the Zes of the South has financial coverage until the end of this year. Then the government will decide whether or not to refinance this measure. It would be important to have a positive signal in this sense, I’m not interested in ideological discussions, if something works why change it?”.