April 3, 2024
Fincantieri CEO Pierroberto Folgiero on transatlantic defense industrial innovation and cooperation
Pierroberto Folgiero, chief executive officer of Fincantieri, Italy’s leading shipbuilding company that works closely with the US Navy and has several shipbuilding sites in the United States, joined the Atlantic Council for an interview with Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Folgiero shared his perspective on the importance of allied defense industrial cooperation, especially between the United States and Italy, technological innovation in the maritime theater, and the challenges of workforce constraints. Fincantieri is a donor to the Atlantic Council.
Full interview
Featured quotes
Here are a few highlights from the conversation:
On the state of the defense market
European defense needs to manage fragmentation, and the best way to manage fragmentation is to share platforms and to share as much as possible, also at a transatlantic level.
On the challenges facing shipbuilding
How to be a manufacturing power without enough labor? That’s the big question mark of Western countries… It’s very important that we convince our own people that production is a good job. So, we have to retell the story of shipbuilding. And to do this, we need to modernize shipyards.
On the future of shipbuilding and transatlantic cooperation
I am very focused on the underwater for the future… I believe that the Mediterranean underwater can be a kind of perfect place to validate the new approaches, new models, and new technology.
The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.
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Image: 190910-N-UB406-0146 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Sept. 10, 2019) The Royal Danish navy frigate HDMS Peter Willemoes (F 362), right, the underway replenishment oiler USNS Patuxent (T-AO 201), center, and the Royal Netherlands navy frigate HNLMS Van Speijk (F 828), left, transit the Atlantic Ocean during exercise Cutlass Fury 2019. Cutlass Fury is designed to be a biennial, medium-scale exercise off the coast of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, with the sole purpose to exercise Canada's Atlantic Fleet, Allied Navies, and other joint elements in tactical-level warfare. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Cameron Stoner)