Time.news – Decisive days for close the agreement with the EU on Ita and allow the new Alitalia to take off coinciding with the start of the summer season. Next Tuesday the commissioners Giuseppe Leogrande, Daniele Santosuosso and Gabriele Fava will be heard by the Chamber’s Productive Activities and Transport commissions to take stock of the situation. In recent days, the Minister of Economic Development Giancarlo Giorgetti said that “with the extraordinary commissioners a reflection on alternative plans is underway if the current negotiations go wrong ”. These days the work is proceeding with the technical tables to find the right balance and then have the ‘political’ go-ahead for Ita to take off.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi replied at a press conference on Alitalia on Friday, reiterating that in the future he will have to support himself. “Debt is good only if a reform of society is carried out which will then move forward on its own wings and it will not have to be continually subsidized as it has been in recent years. It needs to be autonomous and support itself“, he stressed.
The Minister of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility Enrico Giovannini explained that the negotiations with the EU are tough but there is no impasse. The negotiations with Brussels on Alitalia “continue, yesterday and today, we are not in the least impasse”.
“We are negotiating very hard – explained Giovannini – because it is a question of a strong company that is able to stay on the market, to make successive alliances but from a position of strength. “The minister stressed the importance of integrating air and rail transport.
On a can passage of Alitalia workers to the FS, Giovannini said that “the interpretation that the problem is simply to, truly disrespectful words towards workers from one company to another, is not correct “.” What is happening, also in other countries, I am thinking of Germany – he specified – is a strong integration between air transport services and railway ones. This integration is not a social welfare motivation but it is one of the pieces of the future of air transport. So that interpretation I must say is definitely incorrect “.
In the meantime, from Brussels, the unions and many parliamentary forces are sent back to the sender allegations of unequal treatment between Alitalia and big Europeans such as Air France and Lufthansa. “Alitalia was at a constant loss and was in trouble before December 31, 2019” for this reason case is different from Air France “and for this” is not eligible to receive the aid provided for by the temporary framework state aid, including recapitalization measures “, underlined a spokeswoman for the European Commission.
The tug-of-war concerns in particular the number of Linate slots (for which the EU asks for a 50% cut), the number of aircraft (on which that of employees also depends), the brand and the name. In this regard, Giovannini again, in recent days, specified that “the Government considers the brand as an important element of the negotiation”. Giorgetti assured that either there will be a reasonable compromise with the EU or “the government will not accept” an agreement. At the same time, he added, “the rule that allows the State to restore the company must be interpreted in a reasonable way because those who work must have a salary”.
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