Insularity, Confartigianato Sardinia: «Transport, energy and infrastructures are the most urgent problems»

Once the principle of insularity has been recognized and inserted into the Constitution, the need now is to "fill" it with content. This is why the promoting committee for insularity is operational, which has convened a working group in the Regional Council . During the meeting, among other things, the needs of Sardinian artisans emerged who ask the State to be able to grow and compete with equal rights in Italy and Europe.

The proposals, by Confartigianato Sardegna, concern in particular energy, internal infrastructures, unfinished public works, transport of people and goods, taxation , which the association defines as " ballast that the island has been dragging around for decades , which negatively affect the system Sardinian production and its inhabitants, and that the State, in over 70 years, has failed to mitigate".

The document presented to the Working Group contains the problems and proposals: «The recognition of insularity by the State, after so many years of battles and claims, is the first concrete step forward which should lead us to fill a part of the inconveniences associated with being an Island. In Sardinia, finally, the need for a better condition than the one it has been experiencing for 70 years now has been recognized. Not the request for privileges or shortcuts, but only the need to have the same possibilities for growth, development, equal rights and opportunities that other companies in other contexts have always had» , were the words of the regional secretary, Daniel Serra.

« Entrepreneurs don't want welfare - he added -: they only ask to be able to compete on equal terms with the rest of the European and Mediterranean realities. But the journey is still very long and the road fraught with obstacles, as an association we will fight until the recognition of insularity is rendered as a concrete and applicable act to the life of every citizen and to the activity of every company". «We know that there will be difficulties and some resistance for this recognition, in fact – continued Serra – teamwork is therefore necessary to be able to consolidate a high level of attention on the issue. We are, and will be in the future, alongside the Working Group in the actions it will be able to carry on and in all the activities that will be useful for raising awareness of productive activities and the Sardinian population".

In particular, as far as businesses are concerned, in Sardinia - Confartigianato underlined - there is no "drawbridge" that connects it to the rest of Italy; this can only be built starting from the removal of isolation to arrive at the real recognition of the condition of insularity.

On the energy issue , the proposal concerns "the confirmation and strengthening of the measures already implemented in the past months by the previous national Executive: zeroing of general system charges for electricity and gas, extension of the tax credit on electricity and gas costs for businesses non-energy-intensive and non-gas-intensive. Furthermore, a European ceiling must be set for the price of gas and the revenue calculated on extra profits must be recovered, so as not to aggravate the situation of the public budget, and a gesture of responsibility and solidarity by energy companies is needed to safeguard the entire national production system. Investments in renewable energies and in the diversification of supply sources must also be supported, in particular to create energy communities".

While for infrastructures : «It is fundamental to reprogramme, where possible, the unfinished ones, favoring the reuse of the work both through private sector project finance interventions and through changes in intended use, but it is equally fundamental to pay attention to the programming it must be more careful and detailed, in order to avoid wasting public resources. Last but certainly not least is the question which, especially in this period, is putting companies off track: the increase in the cost of raw materials, therefore, the incongruity of public procurement. Unfortunately, the increase in the cost of materials does not correspond to an adequate value of the contracts. This is a problem that will soon have a negative impact on the construction of the next infrastructures, especially with the PNRR".

For the transport of goods , for the artisans «the age of the arterial roads, the growing difficulty of ship passages, the scarce intermodality and the company balance sheets that no longer add up have a heavy influence. Added to this is the lack of professional figures, a situation which cannot be remedied until wages are brought to economic levels suitable for the commitment of the profession. The lack of young people has become a central problem for the world of road haulage: there are fewer and fewer drivers and they are getting older. The prospect, to be avoided, is of a market that risks "emptying" when the generation of "veteran" drivers retires, because the new professionals are not sufficient to fill the gap».

Finally, on taxation : «There was the illusion that a general "taxation of advantage", not better defined and contextualized, was the panacea for all ills. It would be more appropriate to propose reference territorial models to which incentives or support could possibly be applied for the establishment and maintenance of productive activities, along the lines, for example, of what happens for the ZES which in recent years in Italy are deploying the advantageous aspects and attracting investment. By way of example, it would be interesting to evaluate the possibility of increasing the financial endowment of the Islands to allow the disbursement of subsidized loans both on the interest account and even more on the capital account with high percentages of public contributions (80-100%) for economic initiatives undertaken by men between 18 and 45 years and for women of any age with a maximum duration of 20 years. These could be combined with tax credit interventions to reduce the taxation on hiring and expenses for employees to be introduced and trained in the company".

(Unioneonline/ss)

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