While Innocenti and Autobianchi may be used to draw foreign investors, Germany might be trying to undermine the E.U.’s upcoming Chinese EV tariffs
Last December, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party passed a seemingly innocuous law that any Italian brand that remained unused for more than five years became the property of the government. Kinda like corporate wards of the state, if you will.
No one, at least no one I know, knew why they’d want to take over defunct brands, many of them truly ancient and of little to no value in the modern world. Who cares, for instance, what happens to Innocenti, a brand that last produced a car in 1997, and hasn’t been truly significant since the late ‘70s? Ditto Autobianchi, which ran out of steam in 1996 but was actually only relevant until the mid-‘80s.
What makes this story even more delicious is that both brands are owned by Stellantis, as they were once (semi-)productive parts of Fiat which, of course, was the Italian half of the original Fiat-Chrysler merger. I say “delicious” — though I could have also said “more than a little political” — because Meloni is, well, seriously cheesed at Stellantis. Considering that she seems perfectly willing to abscond with two of the company’s (semi-)storied brands and to offer them up to the Chinese, you might even call it a war.
The impetus for this conflagration is that the Italian government seems to still see Stellantis as an Italian company and, call it shades of a Trumpist Make-Italy-Great-Again campaign, wants it to produce more vehicles in its now very-much-ceremonial homeland (Stellantis’ official headquarters are now in the Netherlands).
What Meloni really wants, according to Reuters, is for Stellantis to commit to producing one million cars in Italy. What she clearly doesn’t want is cars being built in lands foreign — even, it seems, if they are part of the E.U. — and then marketed as being Italian. Stellantis’ response is that all three of the above-mentioned products are trumpeting their Italian heritage, not their country of origin. Whatever the case, this latest threat to give Innocenti and Autobianchi to the Chinese is a serious escalation of hostilities.
According to authors Maria Martinez, Holger Hansen, and Christian Kraemer, the imposition of tariffs does not require a unanimous support of member states, but does require a majority. With populist Hungary certain to vote nay — China is Hungary’s largest foreign investor, and Chinese automakers have eyes on building a battery plant there — and Italy voting who knows which way, the commissioners couldn’t afford to lose another vote, especially from the bloc’s biggest economy. Hence why Reuters claims Germany’s abstention is considered a win for the pro-tariff crowd, even if is obvious that it wants nothing to do with the tariffs proposed.
The big question, then, is how the Yanks will react if they see a European-like response. The E.U. may be a significant trading partner, but trans-shipment across our borders is much more a threat to American sovereignty than trade with Germany or France. The only thing for sure is that China will try to take advantage of any potential loopholes in what the Americans – both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, in the one thing they agree about — would much prefer was a unified Canadian-U.S. border.
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