– I am arguing with Italian companies because I have to deliver the SAMP-T defense system to Ukraine, and the Italian company that is developing it was closed in August due to the holidays. It is also closed on Saturday and Sunday, as well as in the evenings – complained Guido Crosetto at the Globsec Prague Forum 2024, quoted by Italian media.
“It is necessary to create an efficient arms industry”
– Russian and Chinese companies and Iranians work seven days a week, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. I am exaggerating, but we oppose these systems – he continued. – Putin decides from one day to the next that a factory producing cars will be involved in the production of weapons. We are not even able to introduce changes in such a plant that produces weapons to do it faster – the minister explained further.
In his speech, he emphasized that Europe must change and adapt to war conditions. He noted that there is no time to catch up on the backlog from previous years, which is why industry must also switch to war-time production.
– We must hurry to build the European pillar of NATO, because for us, Westerners, there is no defense and deterrence policy outside NATO. Europe can build an efficient armed forces in the next ten, fifteen years, but first we have to create an efficient arms industry. Now it is not like that, because there are places that are not able to produce weapons – said Guido Crosetto.
Italy. Factory denies minister's words. “We worked”
A moving speech policy caused a stir in Italy. One of the factories producing SAMP-T systems felt offended by these words and issued a statement in which it denied that it would be closed for the whole of August and would not work on weekends. Production there is to be carried out in three shifts, and the number of employees is to increase soon.
Quoted in this statement, which has come to light money.pl, the head of the unions associated with the factory, Fabio Bernardini, explained that “the problem is that a fourfold increase in production cannot be achieved in a few weeks”. At the same time, he pointed out that also government should speed up the process of issuing approvals for investments in the arms sector.