Italian pacifists stymie Europe’s plan to boost ammunition production
Anti-establishment politicians oppose expansion of Rheinmetall plant in Sardinia
Europe’s drive to boost its ammunition production has run into political resistance in Italy, where local officials are opposing Rheinmetall using new production lines at its explosives plant in Sardinia.
The German defence company’s local subsidiary, RWM Italia, has been waiting six months for Sardinian authorities to clear its use of new production lines at the plant, which has been working round-the-clock to meet demand from Ukraine and other European militaries.
The new lines would sharply increase output at the plant in Domusnovas, and government technical experts deemed the new facilities, including an explosives testing field, environmentally acceptable in April.
But Sardinia’s regional council — led by the leftwing populist Five Star Movement — has refused to approve it and demanded more information, citing criticism from local environmentalists and anti-war activists.
“What we need to ask ourselves is: Do we want to be in a war economy?” said Alessandra Todde, Sardinia’s regional president and Five Star politician. The party’s leader Giuseppe Conte is also critical of Europe’s rearmament, which he claims is delivering windfall profits to Rheinmetall and other arms makers to the detriment of social spending.
The stand-off highlights the difficulties in increasing European arms production in Italy, one of Europe’s major industrial powers, given the country’s strong environmental and pacifist movement. It is also part of a broader reckoning in Europe as governments divert public funds to defence to counter the Russian threat and make up for fading US security guarantees.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is a strong defender of Ukraine and has supported using EU funds to bolster the country and the continent’s defences against Russian aggression. Local lawmakers from rightwing Brothers of Italy party have condemned Five Star’s stalling tactics, with Antonella Zedda, a parliamentary member from Sardinia, describing their stance as “fake pacifism”.
“They think, ‘no weapons, no wars.’ But it’s not like if we don’t make weapons in Sardinia, wars will stop,” Zedda said.
Alessandro Marrone, a defence analyst with Rome’s Institute of International Affairs, said grassroots opposition, coupled with Italy’s notorious bureaucracy “makes it more difficult to boost industrial production” in the arms sector.
“Local authorities or political parties that are against defence production — whether for ideological purposes, environmental concerns, or just to oppose the government — have lots of leverage,” he added.
Rheinmetall did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a 2023 cost-benefit analysis seen by the FT, the company insisted the expansion was “not motivated by mere profit requirements, but by the need to expand production capacity . . . to be able to supply the national, European, and allied armed forces with what they need in shorter times and at lower costs than in the past’’.
The German defence company has operated at Domusnovas since 2010, when it bought an old factory that made explosives for Sardinia’s mining industry, and began producing arms there including underwater mines and munitions.
In 2018, it obtained permission from local authorities to build new production lines and a small explosives testing field, for which it planned to hire another 250 workers.
However, the new facilities have been lying idle, tied up in legal challenges mounted by environmental and pacifist groups.
Italy’s top administrative court, the Council of State, ordered a full environmental impact report on the expansion in 2021, after activists argued that the project had been intentionally split into smaller proposals to qualify for fast-track approval which does not require comprehensive assessments.
Environmental activist Graziano Bullegas accused Rheinmetall of having a ‘‘colonial’’ approach.
“They made an entire plant without any of the necessary authorisations thanks to this complicity on the part of the local authorities,” he said.
The post-facto environmental assessment, approved by technical experts, was finally sent to the regional council for formal ratification in April. But last month, the council requested fresh analysis from 10 different government departments.
“The regional council is in difficulty because . . . the Five Star Movement doesn’t want to approve a resolution that says ‘we can produce weapons in Sardinia’,” said Zedda. Instead, the council was using “bureaucratic tricks” to avoid the approval, she added.
RWM won a court ruling this month ordering the council to act within 60 days, with a warning that an independent commissioner could be appointed in case of further delays.
If the expansion gets the go-ahead, local activists have pledged to keep up the legal battle.
“We don’t have to have a multinational company coming here to produce bombs,” said Arnaldo Scarpa, a schoolteacher and activist with the pacifist Committee for the Reconversion of RWM, which wants the plant returned to civilian use. “You cannot use war to resolve controversies between the nations.”
Zedda said the saga sends an alarming message to investors — including arms makers — at a time when Sardinia badly needs the kind of well-paid manufacturing jobs that could come from the European spending boom.
“The message that Sardinian politicians are sending is peculiar: you can’t have free enterprise in Sardinia if what you produce doesn’t please the wider community,” she said. “You’re putting a spoke in your own wheels with bureaucracy.”