Roundtable event on the future of aluminium

Under patronage of the Italian Presidency of the EU Council, the Italian aluminium association, Centroal, and the European Aluminium Association (EAA) hosted a Roundtable in Rome.

The event, titled ‘A New Deal for European Industrial Renaissance: Concrete Measures towards a Competitive and Sustainable Economy’ brought together some of the aluminium industry’s customers and European and Italian policymakers to discuss the ever increasing demand for aluminium.

Claudio De Vincenti, Italian Vice-Minister for Economic Development says, “The Italian Government committed during this six-month presidency of the EU to ensuring that the European Council takes competitiveness as a benchmark against which to measure all European policies, using already available tools to assess impact on competitiveness and which are also applicable to the aluminium sector.” He added, “Aluminium is of fundamental importance as an input for a large number of European and Italian industries that combine the virtues of tradition and the potential of the future”.

On the unique challenges facing the industry, Chairman of the EAA Roeland Baan concluded “Aluminium sees a growing demand but decreasing production, this is the European paradox. And for what reason? Essentially due to regulatory costs. It is necessary to implement policies at EU level that offset the burden of costs for the most exposed energy-intensive industries that cannot pass through the cost of climate and energy policies. Equally important is to reduce the increasing exports of aluminium scrap that have to be considered as leakage of Europe’s energy bank. This is crucial for Europe to achieve energy independence.”

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