Italy • • • 🌿 Progressive

Un maestro artesano entrega una herramienta a un joven aprendiz en un taller italiano
El relevo generacional en los talleres, uno de los ejes del discurso de Meloni ante Confartigianato · Imagen generada — Erick Prometeo Media

Meloni unveils craft reform linking training, credit and generational renewal

Giorgia Meloni told Confartigianato that the Government will approve today the decree reforming the 1985 craftsmanship framework law, with less bureaucracy…

--- The context --- Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni addressed the Confartigianato Assembly at the Auditorium Conciliazione in Rome with a speech that placed craft work at the center of Italian productive, social and territorial life. She said that behind every artisan who raises the shutter of a workshop each morning there is a community kept alive, a social presence maintained and a history handed down, and she argued that without craftsmanship the Made in Italy label would practically not exist at all. Meloni linked that role to export strength and, echoing Granelli, said exports reach EUR 644 billion with Italy fourth among world exporting nations. Quality and practical knowledge thus appear as resources that cannot be copied or offshored, while still needing fair rules, accessible credit and respected technical training. --- The facts --- The central announcement was that today, at the Council of Ministers convened a few hours later, the Government will approve the decree reforming the framework law on craftsmanship of 8 August 1985, after more than forty years in force. According to Meloni, the reform seeks fewer bureaucratic burdens, a framework in step with the times and a way to combine the excellence of manual work with the dynamism that the present era requires from firms in the sector. Among the concrete changes, the prime minister pointed to freedom to organize production, administration and management also in different premises and territories without losing artisan status. She added a principle on who holds the firm: in a craft business, the person who works with their own hands must continue to count for more than the person who only contributes capital. Presented as a core of the decree, that formula aims to protect the nature of the trade without forcing workshops to give up new forms of productive organization. In the same Council of Ministers, the Budget Law will be approved and, Meloni announced, it will introduce another principle: a firm born as an artisan business and artisan for at least seven years may keep its status even if it decides to increase its collaborators, with particular attention to master craftspeople and apprentices. The idea set out was that growing must no longer mean being denatured, because size and artisan nature can coexist, and because losing status for growing was, in her framing, a paradoxical answer from the State. In defense of the sector, Meloni recalled that the first annual law on small and medium-sized enterprises reserved the words craftsmanship and artisanal to those registered in the register of artisan firms who directly make those goods and services. She also said more than thirty thousand fictitious open-and-close firms have been closed ex officio since 2023. On credit, she announced the relaunch of Artigiancassa with mixed public-private governance involving Mediocredito Centrale, the confederations and the Confidi, a fund with an initial endowment of EUR 50 million for investment and development, and the Artigiancassa agreement with SACE to support the internationalization of artisan firms. Generational renewal was presented as the most urgent challenge: technical training is no longer treated as a second-class choice, with the Liceo del Made in Italy and the reform now in regime and employment stably above 80% one year after the qualification. The incentive lets masters close to retirement move to part-time work with contributions zeroed up to EUR three thousand a year if a person under 35 is hired permanently. --- The positions --- The Government position, as Meloni set it out, combines protection of artisan identity, credit access, training and competitiveness. At European level, she claimed the extension of Protected Geographical Indications to non-food artisanal and industrial products as a shield for territorial excellences. Confartigianato appeared in the speech as a recognized interlocutor: Granelli had recalled exports and the credit bottleneck, and the prime minister thanked the confederation for its recent collaboration, including the road transport agreement. On competitiveness and energy she cited the Transition Plan with almost EUR 10 billion, more than twenty-seven thousand projects mobilizing about EUR 8 billion, the Nuova Sabatini, EUR 450 million for Mezzogiorno firms and reopening the nuclear path. --- What remains unknown --- The final text of the decree is not yet available, nor the operational detail for organization across different premises, for the principle on those who work with their hands, or for continuity after a workforce increase. Deadlines, requirements that will disappear and how credit will reach the smallest workshops were also not specified. --- Unanswered questions --- How will it be checked in practice that in a craft firm the person who works with their hands counts for more than the person who only provides capital? Which concrete bureaucratic burdens will disappear under the decree, and from when will workshops feel the change? Will the relaunched credit reach the smallest firms outside the large centers, and on what conditions? How many young people will be brought in through the incentive linked to masters close to retirement, and how will that handover be followed region by region? --- EPM analysis --- The speech assembles a complete chain: identity protected against unfair competition, proximity credit, the possibility of growing without losing status, European protection of origin and technical training with employment outcomes. Its social emphasis lies in the workshop as community infrastructure: when a small workshop endures in a remote village or in a metropolitan periphery, it does not only produce income, it also sustains bonds, services and the transmission of a trade between generations. 📌 EPM Take: In EPM's view, the announced reform matters for trying to resolve a contradiction long denounced by workshops: growing without ceasing to be artisans, organizing with more freedom without losing identity and passing on the trade without treating technical training as a lesser path. Its real reach will depend on the final text of the decree, on credit actually reaching small firms and on the renewal incentive turning into stable contracts for young people in the territories where each workshop sustains employment, community and a shared Italian productive future ahead. It will also matter that small territories see concrete results soon, without new administrative hurdles for workshops or for the young apprentices entering the trade.
📤 Share on Telegram

¿Te gustó este artículo? Recibe cobertura global en tu correo.

Suscríbete gratis / Subscribe free