the choices of the government – Corriere.it

Even the most savvy of union leaders would never have expected that the Meloni government would intervene with the sword of golden power to condition an important acquisition in the household appliances sector. Yet in the controversial Council of Ministers on May 1st, the subject of lively political controversies over the symbolic choice of the date, this too happened. On the advice of Adolfo Urso, the head of the Enterprise and Made in Italy department, the resident of the Council had a Dpcm approved that goes straight like a spindle into the merits of the operation that led the Americans of Whirlpool to sell the European activities of the white to the Turks of Arcelik. The decree makes explicit reference to the powers of the law on golden power, considering the household appliances sector as strategic for the first time, authorizes the operation but binds it to specific provisions to safeguard the technological heritage, production and therefore employment levels, as effects of any overlaps between the establishments of the new group. Not a little.

And in fact from the union – despite the ongoing dispute with the government on the choices of economic policy – an applause went out. positive news – says Massimiliano Nobis, Fim-Cisl national secretary -. And it is also the result of the pressure we have exerted on the government in recent months. Now, however, we ask Minister Urso for an urgent meeting on how he intends to implement the decision taken. We don’t want to create false expectations, clarity is better. At stake for the union is the future of the 4,700 employees of the production plants in Lombardy, Tuscany and the Marches, but the continuity of a historic corporate culture of Italian manufacturing with the Varese traditions of the Borghi and Fabrianese Merlonis is also under discussion. In fact, both groups had become part of Whirlpool over the years and are now facing a new turning point.

Policies and vetoes

Having said that on the Whirlpool-Arcelik merger (the final shares will be 25% and 75% respectively) the decisive word belongs to the Antitrust authority of Brussels which has investigated the case, the choice of the Dpcm on May Day shakes the waters, and a lot . And in some way it will also be examined indirectly in the Belgian capital because historically the various EU Commissions have contested, in part or wholly, the national golden share laws such as the one adopted in Great Britain and the action specifique promulgated in France. As already mentioned, the first time that the white goods industry was affected by a measure of this type and then, not a secondary detail, to sell not an Italian company but a Yankee multinational. The novelties are not finished because the use of golden power appears extensive in another direction as well: it places negotiating stakes on the merger and its productive/employment repercussions and thus looks more like an instrument of negotiated industrial policy than pure and simple veto exercise (as the golden power was used in the vast majority of cases in Italy).

The first legislation on the matter dates back to 2012 with the Monti government and the sectors indicated were five: defence, national security, energy, transport and communications. In 2017, the scope of intervention was extended to highly technologically intensive sectors. Thus we arrive at 2021 when the Draghi government also includes food, insurance, the health sector and the financial sector. It is worth emphasizing that between 2012 and 2021 many things had changed in the world and somehow if before the golden power served to protect the Italian industrial heritage from Western cousins ​​and competitors, with the 1920s the predator to be stopped with the veto drier in the end is called Beijing. Always to continue in the wake of a small and summary history of special powers, it will be useful to remember that the first case of use of October 2020 with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte stopping the entry of the American fund Kkr into FiberCop. A few months later, however, Mario Draghi will trigger the red light for the sale of Lpe, a small Lombard microchip company, to the Chinese Shenzhen Investment Holdings. There will be no formal record of it in the annals but the government headed by the former president of the ECB, using only moral suasion, also de facto opposes the sale of Iveco to the Chinese of the Faw. Thus we arrive at December 2022 when, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Meloni government strengthens the golden power with regard to the perimeter of energy supplies.

Home appliances

Let’s go back to household appliances and ask ourselves if the trade unionists’ concerns are well founded. The answer is affirmative because the Whirlpool bite is big and insiders suspect that it is even too big for Arcelik. In fact, not only Italy is at stake, but a perimeter of European activities with a turnover of 6 billion, 24 million items, 20,000 employees, 9 factories and historic brands such as Indesit, Hotpoint, Bauknecht and Hotpoint. Arcelik is based in Istanbul and is 45% owned by the Koc family. With large American household appliances, the Turkish company makes a huge leap, it is definitively Europeanized and will have to clarify its positioning strategies. Until now it has been characterized – successfully, it must be said – for a medium-low range product and for a competition centered almost exclusively on the piece, once Whirlpool is annexed, will it change pace? Very little is known about it, even if Minister Urso has met with company representatives and trade unionists fear that the Italian product will lose its originality and be played down with a plan to eliminate duplicate plants or production lines.

The Wartsila case

In a case immediately preceding the Whirlpool one, the Meloni government itself had moved by imposing prescriptions (and not a mere veto) on the buyer, the Cypriot fund Goi Energy. Took the field to acquire the Isab refinery in Priolo which belonged to the Russian Lukoil but in that circumstance washing machines, refrigerators and dishwashers were not in question but a prevailing geopolitical interest linked to the evolution of the conflict in Eastern Europe and the financial ties of the Cypriots . And in fact, before the guarantees on the maintenance of production and employment levels, the government imposed on buyers the traceability of the origin of oil supplies. Comments Roberto Benaglia, general secretary of Fim-Cisl: I don’t know if with the Arcelik case we are faced with a skin change of the golden power instrument, for the government he affirms the principle according to which the State must intervene to preserve the heritage technology and employment. But then it is legitimate to ask: are we in the field of newly minted industrial policies or the exercise of special powers? And in other similar cases, let’s take the Wartsila dispute in Trieste, with the Finnish ownership having decided to close the site, would the government be willing to use golden power again? The legitimate question – replies Benaglia -. For this reason we expect its use to be properly defined. Which in any case, let it be clear, cannot replace genuine industrial policies.