ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s Leonardo is not talking to automotive producers, such as Stellantis, about possible partnerships to produce military equipment, the state-controlled defence company’s chief executive said on Thursday.
As Europe sets out to raise military spending – with EU leaders meeting to discuss proposals to mobilise up to 800 billion euros ($843 billion) for rearmament – unused car plants across the bloc are seen as a quick way of ramping up military production while reviving a suffering industry.
In Germany, defence companies are seeking more capacity, while carmakers, for decades the country’s economic powerhouse, are cutting jobs and shutting plants amid slowing demand and a faltering electric vehicle transition.
“We do not have any ongoing discussions with carmakers, too early, it would be impossible,” Leonardo CEO said at a press conference in Rome.
Cingolani said the car industry could make a limited contribution to efforts to boost defence production.
“In a certain way the automotive industry could be used for some components… but (a production conversion) from cars to tanks would be very hard,” Cingolani said.
The Leonardo CEO said that defence companies would have to make choices on ways to increase their production in the face of a spike in defence spending and the consequent rise in orders.
He repeated that alliances would be the way forward to produce more without having to, necessarily, invest in new production facilities.
He conceded that the automotive industry in Europe needed help after suffering from “decisions that were not technologically neutral, but going from cars to tanks is not the solution”.
(Reporting by Giulia Segreti, editing by Gavin Jones and Keith Weir)
