Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
PALERMO – The grip of high fuel prices and the effects of the hauliers’ strike are pushing Anci Sicilia to issue a heartfelt appeal to both the national government and the Sicilian Region. The association of the island’s municipalities is calling for swift and extraordinary responses before the local economy, already heavily burdened by its insular condition, reaches the point of no return.
“An immediate cut to fuel duties is needed”
Voicing the concerns of Sicily’s mayors are the president of Anci Sicilia, Paolo Amenta, and the general secretary, Mario Emanuele Alvano, who highlight the urgency of coordinated action at petrol and diesel pumps.
“An immediate intervention to cut fuel duties and lower the cost of fuel at the pump is essential. This is a crucial transitional measure while we await structural solutions. The concrete risk is a total shutdown of an already deeply fragile economic system like Sicily’s,” Amenta and Alvano explain.
The Region’s role: use the administrative surplus
In addition to the measures to be adopted at Palazzo Chigi, the association is also urging direct commitment from the regional administration led by Renato Schifani, calling on it to deploy its own financial resources to mitigate the impact of the crisis.
“Alongside national intervention, concrete commitment from the regional government is necessary, including through the use of the significant resources from the administrative surplus, to support the sector and contain the fallout on businesses and local communities. Each institutional level must do its part,” add the leaders of Anci Sicilia.
The burden of insularity and the ministerial roundtable
For Anci Sicilia, the opening of the roundtable promoted by the Ministry represents an indispensable step, in which Sicily’s geographical condition must carry decisive weight: insularity, in fact, hugely amplifies the final cost of freight transport to the market, penalising the competitiveness of Sicilian businesses compared to those in the rest of the country.
