The criminal attention on Calabrian businesses has returned with emphatic violence. From the most recent very serious fire to the damage of a company specialized in the processing of Calabrian truffles, to the damage to the vehicles of the company of the president of Ance Calabria, engaged in a construction site in Schiavonea, passing through the arson fires which once again affected virtuous agricultural companies in the Piana di Gioia Tauro. Without forgetting the intimidation of recent months against companies in the Vibo area operating in the industrial area.
A criminal resurgence that worries UIL Calabria: «Doing business in Calabria continues to be complicated, often dangerous – comments Mariaelena Senese, general secretary of the union -. There is no province in which criminal events against economic operators are not reported: this puts the economic growth of the entire territory at risk and with it the working future of thousands of people. It is a social emergency that must be addressed with special tools, with a serious and strong investment on the part of the national government so that the presence of the police forces on the territory is significant and widespread: the many important legality protocols that the UIL has signed with the Prefectures, Prosecutor’s Offices and heads of the law enforcement agencies are unlikely to be worth much if these cannot then be applied due to a lack of operational or administrative personnel”.
«It’s not just a matter of preventing threats and attacks – continues Senese -. Companies that are forced to submit to the yoke of criminal blackmail take away resources from the territory, from investments, from the hiring of additional staff. Those resources end up in illicit activities, often used as attractors of low-cost laborers driven to crime precisely because of the lack of work caused by criminal ties to the legal economy. This spiral is as clear as it is suffocating for Calabria. And it is one of the social factors that induce young Calabrians to leave without looking back.”