Efficiency, sustainability, security, and equity: Key words for industry

Our Manifesto on the reindustrialization of Tuscany has had a wide echo, so much so that similar initiatives are being launched in other regions as well. We have pioneered an essential debate for the future of our region. As the President of Confindustria Toscana, Maurizio Bigazzi, emphasized, true and sustainable growth of industry must become a "bipartisan obsession." While most reactions have welcomed the spirit of the Manifesto, the recipes can obviously be different: as we say, the Manifesto outlines the perimeter, filling in the area is the task of politics.

What are the principles for beginning to fill in the area?

The Manifesto articulates what we have called an S model: Efficiency, Sustainability, Security, and Equity, with the essential message that these objectives are interrelated: productivity, solidarity, and security are not incompatible, but rather reinforce each other, and the green, digital, and social transition is not an impossible trinity.

On the theme of Efficiency, we must avoid the false opposition between manufacturing and services. The issue is to avoid "absolute decline," not relative decline, which is linked to the ever-increasing share of services in demand. We are therefore aware of the need for the development of services, but a type of high-value-added services, high skill-intensity, only grows if they are complementary to a strong industrial fabric. Technical and digital services, for production and marketing, logistics services find their field of application in the system of industrial companies projected into international competition. Moreover, since reindustrialization must be accompanied by a restructuring of financing with greater capitalization of companies, as envisaged by the expansion of European financial markets, advanced financial and tax consulting services are required.

The message is that productivity, solidarity, and security are not incompatible, but reinforce each other

The imperative of Sustainability does not only reflect an ethical-moral prerogative, but supports a project of economic growth. For example, it is not conceivable to relaunch the fashion system without incorporating the objective of sustainability both in terms of process and product innovations. New materials, clean tech must be the basis of a new message that "speaks" to the new sensibilities of consumers. Here also comes the theme of regulatory simplification: not deregulation, but good regulation that allows the pursuit of the indispensable objectives of the Green Deal. We must exploit even more the opportunities already present in the region, starting with geothermal energy, as well as sun and wind. Local public services, such as waste and water, organized industrially, will have to contribute to the objectives of green growth and the circular economy.

The strengthening of economic Security is also consistent with this strategy. Reindustrialization must create new opportunities for our economy, which is too dependent on other countries for raw materials and energy. Import substitution, which will allow the development of shorter value chains, is essentially played out in the green transition.

Finally, the theme of Equity: we must reallocate factors of production toward sectors - in manufacturing and services - with higher wages and higher productivity to escape extensive growth. Reindustrialization is not an end in itself but is the instrument that allows growth and equity to be reconciled: it increases stable employment and wages; moreover, with the pressure of competition, it erodes extra-profits and rents, resulting in a redistribution of wages/profits and a reduction in inequalities.

How to pursue this ambitious design? The Manifesto proposes a new partnership that starts from social institutions, but expands to include Tuscan universities, research centers, the region's excellence, and also involves new entrepreneurs who operate at the frontier of technology. The European University Institute, a community of excellence, is ready to do its part. From this partnership should emerge a regional development plan as a component of the national-regional plan proposed by the European Commission for the next multi-annual European budget. Playing ahead of time will allow Tuscany to position itself as a privileged interlocutor of the government, giving it good arguments for negotiations in Brussels and with EU authorities. It will also allow regional actors to be equipped to intercept contributions from EU programs based on excellence.

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