"The possible closing of 18 years of tunnel of Mont Blanc will have a cumulative impact of 10 per cent of Valle d'Aosta GDP. First the pandemic, then the war, inflation and now the closures' so John Baroni, President of Piccola Industria interviewed by The North West Press on the occasion of the 'Overview Italian SMEs - Focus on Valle d'Aosta' conference organised by the Piccola Industria di Confindustria Valle d'Aosta with the theme of infrastructure at its centre. Construction sites that stop and then resume are 'a sign of weakness of central policies, hostage to localism. Anachronistic: today we no longer even speak of individual countries but of a continent, Europe. We must break down the obstacles, build bridges, road tunnels, digital backbones. It is infrastructure that unites and integrates'.

And on the hypothesis of the creation of a double barrel of the tunnel on the Italian side said: 'the problem is not the second tube but those three months for 18 years without a tunnel. Incomprehensible that central policies are defenceless against strictly local logic. France will also be negatively affected. The double-barrel will not bring more traffic, on the contrary it will decongest what there is, giving more safety for the transport of dangerous products'.

Baroni then focused on theinvestment emergencythere is great uncertainty. In the United States, President Biden has launched Wrath, a subsidy plan against inflation and to promote environmentally sustainable technologies. Non-repayable subsidies, others at very low rates. We had the 4.0 that had allowed investment in machinery. It has been downgraded. Now we are talking about 5.0 with sustainability as the goal, which requires more financial effort. Our country is lagging behindboth for the major reforms with the Pnrrboth in the private sector. It is necessary to creating conditions for growthas well as simplifying bureaucracy. Businesses do not spring up like mushrooms, they go where there is international attraction, dynamic companies and expertise. Exhibitions, events, exchanges with schools, universities'.

For the president of Small Industry the future has green and digital technology at its coreprecisely for this reason as Small Industry we have launched together with Anitec-Assinform a biennial roadshow to meet companies in the territories on the subject of artificial intelligence. We have made stops in Verona and Bari, and on 6 June we will be in Turin'. In addition, 'being sustainable also means giving attention to the social. Take the automotive industry in which the Northwest is very interested. The EU's approach is one of technological dictatorship, imposing only electric. If the goal is non-pollution, it can be achieved in various forms. Even political choices must be sustainable".