Italy should take French route on incentives, Stellantis CEO says

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy should mimic France's current auto purchase incentives that favour cars produced in Europe when it reviews its own national scheme, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said on Tuesday in an interview with il Resto del Carlino newspaper.

Italy announced earlier this year a new cash incentive scheme for auto purchases, worth 950 million euros ($1 billion) for 2024. However Industry Minister Adolfo Urso has said the scheme might be revised next year if it fails to support sales of vehicles produced in the country.

Asked whether he was worried that Italian incentives would also favour Chinese carmakers, Tavares said some countries, and France in particular, had found a way to avoid it.

As part of the scheme adopted by Paris, only a list of models are eligible for incentives, based on a sophisticated calculation factoring overall carbon emissions along their entire manufacturing and distribution process.

This is discouraging purchases of Chinese-built electric cars (EVs), imports of which have been increasing in Europe helped by lower prices.

France has also adopted a programme, called "social leasing", to subsidise leasing of electric cars by lower earners.

"We need to follow this kind of path. It's a way to protect Europe, not by closing it off but by encouraging local producers to be more competitive," Tavares said in the interview.

The Stellantis CEO also said the French-Italian automaker, whose brands include Peugeot, Fiat and Jeep, did not need the Italian government as a new investor.

"It's not up to the CEO to decide .... (but) the company has no governance problems under John Elkann's chairmanship, it's sound and efficient," Tavares said.

Industry Minister Urso had floated the idea in February during a spat over Stellantis' commitment to Italy.

($1 = 0.9217 euros)

(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari; Editing by Keith Weir)