Assocarta urges Italian government to act as energy costs double for paper and packaging makers

Italy's paper and packaging industry has asked the government for emergency support, pointing to energy bills that have doubled and to competition from producers outside the European Union that are not bound by EU rules. According to ItaliaOggi, Lorenzo Poli of Assocarta, the Italian paper industry association, has called on Rome for urgent measures to keep companies operating.

The appeal comes as the sector faces a combination of high energy and transport costs, weak demand and inflation that producers say they cannot pass through to the market. Valentina Zago, who represents Pro-Gest, described by ItaliaOggi as Italy's leading paper group with 1,100 employees, told the publication that the industry does not have much time left and that the government must act immediately to protect domestic supply chains.

Mills halt output and miss recycling quotas

Zago said the energy situation has been testing even complex and vertically integrated structures such as Pro-Gest's, which she described as a fully Italian and integrated chain. She said some mills are having to stop production because of costs and are struggling to take up the recovered-paper quotas allocated to them by Comieco, Italy's national consortium for the recovery and recycling of cellulose-based packaging.

That has consequences beyond the mills themselves. Recovered paper that is not collected and reprocessed does not reach the packaging stage, where the material is converted into boxes. Zago said energy and transport costs weigh heavily on papermaking and are transmitted along the entire chain to packaging converters.

Companies are caught between two sides of the market, she said: the consumer on one side and, on the other, the manufacturer that buys the boxes and is itself under pressure. Prices should rise at both levels, and there is strong pressure in that direction, but according to Zago the market is not absorbing increases.

Trade asymmetry with Turkey and the PPWR

Zago told ItaliaOggi that Italian and European producers compete with paper, board and boxes made abroad under different production methods and at lower prices, citing the pizza-box segment as an example. She contrasted that with Turkey, which she said has imposed duties on paper imported from Europe to protect its own industry. European mills can therefore no longer sell into Turkey, while Turkish producers continue to ship boxes and paper into Italy.

She described a second asymmetry around the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, which she said entered into force a little over a month ago. The PPWR requires European producers to make a series of adjustments that have cost money, sacrifices and compliance analysis, Zago said, while product from anywhere in the world remains on the market without meeting the same rules.

The shift from plastic towards paper-based packaging had been expected to lift output, but Zago said the benefit has been offset by imported product.

What the industry is asking for

Zago said any measure that supports Italian companies concretely and quickly would be welcome, and that requests are also being made collectively. The specific items she listed include:

• relief on energy costs;
• changes to taxation;
• flexibility to use tax credits;
• removing VAT on the extra costs of energy;
• support in the budget law for gas-intensive and energy-intensive companies.

Without a fast and concrete measure, she said, paper producers will have to raise prices, their customers will have to do the same, and inflation will tend to rise within three months.

On energy policy, Zago said she welcomed the new prospects for nuclear power and noted that Italy pays more for energy than any other country because it never invested in alternative sources as other countries did. She said she appreciates what the government is doing but that any decision or investment takes years to materialise in Italian bureaucracy, adding that she is a factory and operations person and that it takes too long.

Asked what she expects from 2027, Zago said she would like to be optimistic and believe the sector has reached a point where something has to change, but that previous turning points had come with even less favourable winds. Either companies and supply chains are protected, she said, or they are at least supported.