ANCONA The saga continues. The aftermath of the blind brawls that took place behind the scenes of Gino Sabatini’s re-election as president of the Chamber of Commerce continues to dominate the news. And this time they are expressed in the eternal duel between two heavyweights of the Marche business community. To the jab from Elica’s owner Francesco Casoli – who yesterday spoke on our pages of an “embarrassing show” and a “lack of leadership”, calling on everyone to unite – Pierluigi Bocchini, president of Clabo and Confindustria Ancona, replies without filters. “There are also those who remained in Confindustria for 8 months out of the 4 years for which they were elected, and then took refuge in politics”.
The lunge
The incipit says it all. But the thrust goes further: «If he cared so much about aggregation, with the regional president who is his fellow citizen (the former governor Gian Mario Spacca, from Fabriano like Casoli, ed.) he could probably have had more of an impact than he actually did. I don’t remember so much attention to the issue». Bocchini then delves into the merits of the j’accuse of the number one of Elica on the ruling class of the Marche, lacking in personalities of substance in his opinion: «As for leadership, men alone in command don’t excite us and don’t solve anything».
The project failed
But the most turbulent chapter of this long-distance feud concerns the failed merger of the five provincial Confindustrias into a single regional body. A project that began in 2016, but which already started off lamely in 2017 with a division into two blocks: Confindustria Marche Nord (Ancona and Pesaro) and Centro Adriatico (Fermo and Ascoli), with Macerata acting as a free agent. However, the bomb exploded in 2021: first Marche Nord, then Centro Adriatico dissolved, returning the Confindustrias to five different and separate entities. Already at the first test – the passing of the baton between presidents – the merger plan failed.
Past and present
“The regionalization project is currently at a standstill – Bocchini rewinds the tape – due to the responsibility of one territorial out of five”. And he dots the i’s when he underlines how “Confindustria Ancona, on the Chamber of Commerce issue, has done everything possible to achieve the result. Responsibilities should be sought elsewhere”. In fact, if it had not been for the last minute helping hand from Ancona to Confindustria Macerata, the Chamber of Commerce could have been placed under special administration. This did not happen and in the end common sense prevailed, but the scars of too many internal battles in a region as small as it is divided, remain.
