The timid, indeed extremely timid, grumblings of the regional administration during the pro-Palestine protests of recent months, together with its absolute silence on the issue of rearmament, now find a clear and hardly ambiguous explanation. The grand presentation at Palazzo Donini, with the President and the Regional Councillor in the front row, of the cooperation project between several Umbrian companies and Leonardo, a giant of the defence industry, gives the image of a Region fully engaged in the productive effort that accompanies European rearmament and the emerging scenario of permanent war.
The brief note that hastily refers to an alleged “civilian” use of helicopter components does nothing to reassure. On the contrary, the leadership of the programme entrusted to Leonardo, a company that is investing massively in the production of armaments and weapons systems, signals the penetration also in Umbria of a supply chain that identifies rearmament and war-related production as one of the few areas currently deemed worthy of investment, an industrial refuge in the face of the deep crisis affecting the country and the fragile European framework as a whole.
The agreement signed in Umbria does not involve the direct production of weapons, but the supply of components and processes defined as “civilian”, such as bearings, mechanical seals, and semi-finished products for aeronautical platforms. However, this formal distinction does not resolve the political and industrial core of the issue. These productions are in fact part of an integrated supply chain led by a group whose core business is now tightly bound to defence and rearmament. Even when presented as civilian or “dual-use”, this production materially contributes to the overall functioning of an industrial system whose main outlet is the military apparatus. The supply chain is not neutral. Without its apparently harmless segments, the entire mechanism would not stand.
It is in this context that the recent presentation in the Chamber of Deputies of the report curated by Rossana De Simone together with BDS Italia takes on particular significance. The report reconstructs in a detailed way the role of Leonardo S.p.A. within the Italian and European military-industrial complex and its structured relations with the Israeli war industry, highlighting cooperation, transfers of know-how, and responsibilities that strengthen a permanent war system based on the violation of international law.
In light of these analyses, the involvement of the Umbrian productive system cannot be dismissed as marginal or indirect. As also reported by Umbria24, the entry of local companies into the cooperation programme with Leonardo is presented as an opportunity for development and economic resilience in a phase of crisis. Yet it is precisely this dynamic that makes the shift particularly significant. Civil sectors in difficulty are progressively absorbed into military supply chains, turning rearmament into one of the few viable industrial prospects.
This is by no means a technical choice. It is a political choice that normalises the idea that the economic survival of a territory can and must depend on war and its preparation. It is a choice that binds the productive future of Umbria to a model of development based on militarisation and on the subordination of the civilian economy to the needs of the military-industrial complex. The response to the multiple crises of local production districts and to the progressive dismantling of the manufacturing and industrial fabric cannot be a simplistic pursuit of rearmament and defence policies. In 2024 alone, the manufacturing sector in Umbria recorded a contraction of more than 8 per cent, the worst at national level. In this scenario, in the absence of any alternative planning, even the structural crisis of the steel plants of Terni risks having a single possible outlet, namely involvement in the aforementioned process, but with production volumes, by evident necessity, on an enormously larger scale.
This political choice will inevitably turn into a blackmail mechanism against workers, who will not be able to question war production, as it will represent the only (forced) alternative to wage supplementation schemes, labour mobility, and mass redundancies. In this regard, we note an ambiguous stance at the level of the confederal trade union movement. The general strike called by the CGIL on 12 December did bring workers in Umbria into the streets against rearmament, but in the speeches there was no reference to the concrete capacity of organised workers to impose a halt to weapons production in the production sites designated for cooperation with Leonardo. At best, this is due to the exclusion of non-government-aligned unions from regional political discussion tables, in such a way as to confront them with a fait accompli once production lines are already underway.
The Regional Government is therefore called to respond without ambiguity. Does it intend to assume political responsibility for tying the productive future of Umbria to the supply chains of rearmament and the war industry? Is this the model of development that is being offered to a region in crisis, turning it into a cog, albeit a “civilian” and apparently neutral one, of a system that profits from war and its preparation? Or is it prepared to challenge these choices, breaking the silence and indicating an alternative path based on conversion of production, workers’ participation in corporate decision-making, peace, and an economy that does not prosper on destruction?
The Communist Front and the Communist Youth Front will monitor the developments of a situation that risks irreversibly shaping the Umbrian economy, locking it into a production scheme imposed by the military-industrial sector and driven by immense capital, against which no institution, where it is genuinely concerned and not subordinated or complicit, would be able to hold its ground.
In the meantime, we reaffirm as the only alternative to the forced conversion to a war economy the vigilance and organised mobilisation of workers, to prevent their labour from becoming an instrument in the hands of those who seek to drive the popular masses of Umbria and Italy to the slaughter of imperialist war. It is also necessary to rebuild the political strength required to resist and respond to the offensive of financial monopolies that are fuelling the winds of war: a modern and effective Communist Party at the forefront of the working class.
