Pact on new generation reactors, robotics and investments: Urso on a mission to London

“In 2025, trade between the two countries reached 34.5 billion euros, with the UK confirming itself as the sixth market for Italian exports, absorbing almost 27 billion in Italian goods”. The Italian mission had as its objective the consolidation of the relationship between the two countries. “Italy and Great Britain must work together to improve the strategic autonomy of our continent starting from energy supply and more generally on the industrial policy front”, underlined Urso, then shifting the focus to European manufacturing urgencies.

Among these, the energy transition and the relaunch of civil nuclear power stand out, an area in which the minister has clear ideas on the synergies to be activated across the Channel: “The technology that Great Britain can guarantee through Rolls-Royce is one of the best performing ones with which to develop agreements in order to create new generation nuclear reactors”.

The strategic rapprochement between Rome and London is also played out on the table of technological innovation, to avoid being crushed in the grip of the superpowers. Speaking about the global race for artificial intelligence applied to industry, the head of the Ministry for Made in Italy highlighted the urgency of uniting. “We know that we must compete both with China and with the United States to develop a truly competitive industry in Europe in the field of new technologies. The shared goal is to create on our continent a production chain in advanced and innovative robotics with particular reference to physical artificial intelligence applied to production processes. This can also and above all be done with the support of Great Britain”.

In addition to purely industrial dossiers and those linked to the supply of critical raw materials to escape Asian domination, the London summit served to bring big capital from across the Channel closer together. Confronting the leaders of the City’s investment funds, Urso received extremely reassuring signals on the perception of the peninsula. “London has always been the thermometer of investments. Italy is becoming increasingly attractive with a production system that surprises”, concluded Urso, specifying that “in a world in which conflicts are increasing, in which markets are being destructured and new trade or tariff barriers are being raised, Italian exports are growing, a sign that British investors can count on a resilient and dynamic partner”. (Of Alessandro Allocca)