After very heavy drop in sales of large and small appliances (-16% in the first months of the year and -20 in 2023) theEuropean industry sinks between closures, extra-european dumping, promotions aggressive in retail, also due to some decisions taken by the European Commission. There is an alert throughout Europe, particularly in the Southern and Eastern countries of the EU, which maintain a solid manufacturing structure, regarding the Union’s response to the deterioration of the crisis in strategic sectors of the home system, from household appliances to metal products to housewares. Worsening sales which, as we have revealed, will have dramatic repercussions on occupation e factories. Also because the now constant increase in energy costs is unsustainable for European companies: instead of cheap Russian gas, they have to resort to more expensive sources such as oil and gas from Norwegian platforms and supplies from the United States. It was inevitable, in the face of these emergencies, to know the opinion of those directly concerned such as Applia Europe, the association that brings together the household appliance industries operating in Europe, and the trade unions. Applia Europe, incidentally, also counts among its members large Chinese brands with production plants in Europe.
Appliances Made in Europe: Asian Imports Favored?
A series of measures by the various Brussels Commissions, often influenced by Northern European countries that do not have significant manufacturing, has undoubtedly Asian imports favored at a low price also due to the pressing demands of European and Northern European multinational distribution companies (which oppose any incoming controls). As a result, European factories find themselves having to deal with bureaucratic constraints that weigh on costs and determine a progressive loss of market share and competitiveness.
Made-to-order and custom-made washing machines? A risk for Europe
There is no shortage of evidence to support these claims. The most recent is the official statement by the Belgian Kurt Vandenbeg, DG of the Climate Commission, revealing a post-industrial and regressive mentality: “Europe must move from mass production to mass customization, as is happening in the pharmaceutical sector”. According to the DG, we could have drugs tailor-made for the health conditions of each patient. This approach could lead to an industry that produces washing machines to order, in small series, based on niche preferences. Which no one knows what they are and will be. An approach that is impossible to sustain economically even before it is technically. A clear example of the difficult situation of made in Europe is represented by entry level price collapse: a national chain of household products, supplied by a Lombard importer-distributor, sells for example no-brand Chinese washing machines for 85 euros, which often do not offer satisfactory performance.
How Green Policies Are Affecting European Steel
“An example of this attitude was the disastrous flood that submerged part of Poland,” a Polish colleague reported, “and which was caused by the failure to carry out the necessary protection measures due to the opposition of the Greens. They inspired many of the rigid European measures on decarbonisation. And wanting to maintain the utopian climate objectives of this plan only penalises European industry. Incidentally, it also penalises those Chinese and Turkish multinationals that have factories – the real ones, not the ones that assemble – in the EU 27. One of the objectives, for example, concerns the processing of critical materials with the necessary transition to green steel.”
The Digital Product Passport: Suspended but Not Changed
Il Digital Product Passport (DPP) which aims to achieve the circular economy in the EU by 2040, requires companies in the sector to provide the total tracking and detailed of the design and production of imported steel tools, including information on the entire logistics and component suppliers of the originating manufacturer (which is impossible). However, imports of finished products, such as household appliances, remain without adequate controls on safety, eco-friendliness and socio-economic traceability. To understand the complexity of such a regulation, it is useful to consider that furniture manufacturers would be required to provide a lot of detailed information, including the tree species used for the panel, the date of uprooting and the place of origin, among others.
The Dpp involves a bureaucratic burden significant for companies operating in Europe. The reaction of companies and parties was not long in coming. “Applia Europe underlines the importance of a balanced approach that takes into account the needs of industry. In this case also the European Commission – declared Paul Falcioni, General Manager of Applia – understood the serious problem and proposed a delay in the application of the requirements. The Commission recognized the significant delay and suggested to postpone the implementation of the requirements”. Unfortunately, however, the Commission has only suspended application without changing the list of requirements.
Need for greater industry involvement
These stop-and-go measures of many Commissions could be avoided. “Applia Europe calls for the European institutions to regularly consult the industry before issuing new regulations, in order to avoid additional costs, ensure the feasibility of the proposed measures and alignment with the objectives set by Europe. Ideally, the use of new regulations should be surgically dosed so as not to create additional stress on an already severely tested sector. In this regard, it is essential to consider energy costs, which in Europe are higher than in other regions, such as the United States, to ensure the competitiveness of the European industry. Applia Europe believes that a constructive dialogue between the European institutions and the industry is essential to address the current challenges and ensure a sustainable future for the household appliances sector in Europe”.
What the unions say
“The Council of Ministers of 1st May, on the proposal of the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso – declared to FIRSTonline Maximilian Nobis, national secretary of Fim Cisl – had decided to exercise the Golden Power on merger between Whirlpool EMEA and Turkey’s Arcelik to protect the work of over 4.600 employees of the four plants in Lombardy, Marche and Tuscany, placing constraints in terms of safeguarding the technological heritage and employment levels. From the latest news that is arriving on the collapse of consumption and sales, we must acknowledge that the situation is very serious, more than we feared”.
Gianluca I’m a fig tree, national secretary of Uil metalworkers, comments as follows serious risks for the sector: “We are facing a scenario that we must avoid, with our sector caught in a pincer between high costs and low consumption. This is why we have asked the government for a table for the household appliances sector, to address the problems of unsustainable energy costs and the competitiveness of the industry. And for the protection of workers we ask for the strengthening of social safety nets that have high costs deriving from the Jobs Act which has weakened our support system, to the detriment of both workers and businesses. They have thus become more expensive and shorter. We believe that the greater costs should be charged to those companies that fire people while the others should be supported and rewarded. But I would also like to underline that the so-called green European policy should return to being realistic so as not to destroy our industrial system, without compromising the protection of the planet”.
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Publish date : 2024-10-08 21:23:00
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