Last jokes of the electoral campaign, in the editorial office the director Beppe Fossati with Mino Giachino, former under secretary of transport and now candidate for the regional council for Fratelli d’Italia.
What drove you to this electoral adventure in this somewhat, shall we say, conflicted climate in Turin?
“As you know, Director, I have been involved in politics for years, I have had important experiences with the CEO of Fiat, I collaborated for four years with Berlusconi and Gianni Letta. Furthermore, I have worked in transport companies: for 30 years I have been involved of logistics and I would like to bring my government experience and my expertise in the transport and infrastructure sector which are increasingly essential to the economic relaunch of the country and of our Piedmont in the Region because in the last five years many things have been done but Piedmont it’s still stopped”
You became known as “Mr. Si-Tav” when you managed to bring 40 thousand people into the streets after the high speed grillini’s refusal. Today you are becoming Mr. “Si-Auto”. Here, can you explain to me what the parallel is between the tunnel, the high speed train and the factory, why does Turin have a factory problem in Milafiori?
“So, transport is needed for people and goods. If a region loses its factories, transport also decreases, exports decrease and therefore the wealth produced decreases: it was a mistake not to have defense on the car industry, because the car industry is not just Fiat, it is the 2,200 related companies that were born alongside Fiat, because the car has more than a thousand components, each one produced, and therefore both the infrastructure, because green transport on rail, people and goods, and they give us the future, that infrastructure there in 100 years will be considered the main infrastructure of the history we have”
Let’s go back for a moment to Mirafiori, Fiat now Stellantis and allied industries. This extraordinary heritage must be defended, you have said it and you are doing it, but what do you think will be the necessary moves and what can the Region do to regain points for this heritage?
“The Region must push the Urso plan, the Government’s plan which has turned the corner on automotive industrial policy because in the last twenty years those who have governed at a local and national level have witnessed the decline in car production from 1,900,000 per cent year at 460,000 without doing anything: the union didn’t even go on strike, the Urso plan is turning point. The Government says to Stellantis: “I’ll give you the money, I’ll help you and I’ll help the related company, but you have to give me the increase in car production in Italy to one million per year, as in France, as in Germany, as in Spain. This is a relaunch for us. Mirafiori will no longer be just the recycling factory, but will be a factory where cars will be made starting with the 500 hybrid”
One last question: in this city what is the social effect that has developed with the car crisis and what can be done to reverse the trend and what will you do, I hope, if you are in the Regional Council?
Look, you wrote it in the newspaper: the decrease in economic growth due to the decrease in car production has meant that commercial shops have disappeared. The first effect is the decline in trade, it comes from there, right? Why the city has become impoverished The car gave a greater contribution to the city than it gives to tourism. We must not give up tourism, but the car is fundamental because it gives us more money to the workers and gives us more scientific research, more future”.
