{"id":19799,"date":"2026-05-26T12:36:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/19799\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T12:36:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:36:29","slug":"italy-business-lobby-urges-investment-energy-reform-to-revive-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/19799\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy business lobby urges investment, energy reform to revive growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">ROME, May 26 (Reuters) &#8211; The head of Italy&#8217;s largest business lobby on Tuesday urged sweeping reforms to revive the country&#8217;s near-stagnant economy, warning that \u200chigh energy costs and weak investment were undermining growth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">&#8220;For companies, the price \u200cof energy has become an existential threat,&#8221; Confindustria President Emanuele Orsini said, calling for urgent action to \u200breduce costs and boost competitiveness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Speaking at the group&#8217;s annual assembly in Rome, he pointed to Italy&#8217;s long-term underperformance as evidence that change is urgently needed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The economy has grown by just 0.4% on average annually over the past 25 years, compared with 1.4% in the \u200cEuropean Union, 2.1% in the \u2060United States and 8% in China, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Orsini said power costs for Italian companies are among the highest in Europe, and called \u2060for faster approvals for renewable projects, noting 4,000 permits are currently blocked while 131 gigawatts of capacity are awaiting authorisation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Italy has installed 85 GW but needs another 50 GW within \u200bfour \u200byears to meet demand, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">He warned electricity \u200bdemand could double from 300 \u200cto 600 terawatt hours over the next 25 years, driven in part by <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/ai\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:artificial intelligence;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;artificial intelligence&quot;}\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">artificial intelligence<\/a>, and said Italy must expand grid infrastructure and speed up connections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">To guarantee stable supply, he backed long-term gas contracts for industries that cannot easily electrify and a return to nuclear power, including small modular reactors, arguing renewables alone cannot ensure continuity of \u200csupply.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Beyond energy, Orsini called for policies to help \u200bsmall firms scale up, including stronger incentives for \u200bmergers and targeted industrial support, saying \u200blarger companies are more productive and internationally competitive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Confindustria is known \u200cfor its calls for corporate tax cuts \u200band state subsidies, while \u200bits member firms show little willingness to grant pay hikes to workers. Italian salaries are below the level of 1990 in inflation-adjusted terms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">However, Orsini also \u200bproposed a review of 575 \u200ctax breaks that erode around 120 billion euros from the tax base, \u200bidentifying 20 billion euros to reallocate equally to growth, healthcare and education.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">(writing \u200bby Gavin Jones, editing by Gianluca Semeraro)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROME, May 26 (Reuters) &#8211; The head of Italy&#8217;s largest business lobby on Tuesday urged sweeping reforms to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14362,14360,14361,9347,5],"class_list":["post-19799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-business-lobby","tag-confindustria-president-emanuele-orsini","tag-existential-threat","tag-italian-companies","tag-italy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}