As products linked to the Italian identity go, the Fiat 500 is right up there with fashion and food. So when Carlos Tavares, the chief executive of Stellantis — which now owns the Fiat brand — issued a warning over the future of the car’s production in Italy, there was a backlash in the country.Tavares raised doubts over the Fiat factory in Turin, home to the company’s founding Agnelli family, and a plant near Naples if Giorgia Meloni’s government refused to further subsidise electric vehicles. “If you don’t give subsidies to purchase EVs, you are putting at risk the Italian plants,” he told Bloomberg.
The prime minister had previously criticised Stellantis in parliament of working, saying: “If you want to sell a car on the international market by advertising it as an Italian jewel, then that car must be produced in Italy.” The spat comes ahead of a crucial EU parliamentary election in June as the impact of the bloc’s 2050 net zero targets on jobs and industries takes centre stage across the continent.
The Paris-based carmaker, created in 2021 from the merger between Italy’s Fiat-Chrysler and France’s PSA, seemingly backtracked last week in a bid to ease tensions with Rome and unions. “The [Fiat 500] will always be linked to the city of Turin which should be considered [its] home,” the group said after a meeting with unions and local authorities. The root cause of the issue, however, remains unsolved.