Sergio Marchionne lobbied for more understanding for Fiat’s position (whose waiting for better times) in the European car crisis. This week the CEO was not only the chairman of ACEA, but mainly Fiat’s. Marchionne is trying to cope with the different opinions about how to handle the increasing over-capacities in car manufacturing, merely the fact that the German car manufacturers are forming an opposite interest group is rather difficult. The German car manufacturers have formed a strong interest group, which even commented with ‘no comment’. All this can be summed up by the fact that these car manufactures have very good sales outside the EU (BMW, Daimler). What these manufactures know is that also their sales went down. Last month German sales were artificially leveled by registering cars and giving them a licence plate (information made available by Automotive News). A company like Opel, tries to be ambitious and productive, but the fact is that this company has some structural problems. The over capacity will reach 2 million units this year. Fiat opts to produce just as many cars as needed.

So this is really an European problem, although only plants in France and Italy are put on hold some times. Twelve million Europeans have a job in or connected to the Automotive industry. But still then Sergio Marchionne ‘calls out loud’ and it seems no-one takes time to answer. Antonio Tanjani wants to offer some additional support from the European Union, so the employment within the auto industry would get a boost. The chairman of ‘Cars 21′ , the EU department governing competition in the Auto industry, was born in Rome.

In this typical European joust, it looks like Sergio Marchionne cannot impose the importance of his ideas, whereby the European continent is not well served. As CEO of Fiat, Sergio Marchionne recently mentioned at a press conference that Lingotto will look at the market and evaluate sharply. ” We wait for upcoming developments in the market, Greece will be of the utmost importance telling us how these developments behave. The final consequences for Italy are of course very important. We have to be careful in this changing unstable market. Give us the time to adjust and to see opportunities which we than will approche.” This is one of the reasons that up to this day the future of Mirafiori is still open. John Elkan Fiat/Exor president announced that plans will be adjusted when needed to.