It is the fortieth day of war between the United States, Israel and Iran. The Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes, is effectively blocked.
In Italy, diesel fuel has exceeded 2 euros per liter and in the airports of Milan Linate, Bologna, Treviso and Venice the first restrictions on refueling flights have been introduced, with priority given to state and ambulance flights and those lasting more than three hours. Against this backdrop, EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen wrote to all EU energy ministers on March 31 urging them to prepare for “a potentially prolonged disruption to international energy trade” and to follow the International Energy Agency’s 10-point plan to reduce oil consumption.
It is from that IEA plan – not from original European measures – that the indications circulated in recent days derive: less diesel and aviation fuel, more smart workinglower speed limits, fewer flights where rail alternatives exist. Measures still voluntary, not mandatory. The extraordinary summit of EU energy ministers on 1 April ended without binding measures.
What the Italian ministers said: Crosetto and Pichetto Fratin
On April 7, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto gave an interview to Corriere della Sera in which he outlined a gloomy geopolitical picture: “It is a situation that is unprecedented in the history of recent decades,” he said, evoking Hiroshima and the risk of an uncontrolled spiral. To a direct question about the risk that everything will stop in the space of a month, Crosetto replied: “That’s what we fear. Not everything but a lot.” The phrase was widely circulated in the media, but it must be read in its context: Crosetto was talking about the global geopolitical crisis – Trump, NATO, the American bases in Italy, the risk of military escalation – not a ready-made energy rationing plan.
On the specific energy front, the reference voice is the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin. On April 5, in an interview with Repubblica relaunched on LaPresse, he declared:
It is clear that we are ready for rationing if necessary. We are evaluating various possible actions, but there are not yet the conditions to intervene.
He specified that “a special commission is working at the ministry to study the emergency plan” and that “actions will have to be measured on the current situation”, explicitly excluding a return to walking Sundays as in the Seventies.
On the reserves front, on 2 April Milano Finanza had already given a more reassuring reading:
We have a storage capacity of around 45%, we should add 8-9 billion cubic meters but, starting now, I don’t think there are huge difficulties.
And he added: “Let’s hope we don’t have to get to the point of evaluating certain scenarios.” The word rationing is on the table, but as a precautionary scenario, not as an announced measure.
Where would rationing start in the event of an “energy lockdown”
If the situation were to worsen and the government was forced to activate concrete measures, the logic of energy rationing follows a precise hierarchy: essential services are protected and non-strategic consumption is targeted first. As suggested by the European recommendations and the precedents of 2022, the first interventions would concern private transport – with possible restrictions on circulation – and non-essential domestic consumption, such as summer air conditioning. The lighting of monuments, public buildings and non-urgent spaces would be another immediate lever.
The flight sector would be among the most exposed, as already emerges from the first limitations in Italian airports. On the industrial front, the reasoning becomes more complex: continuous cycle and high energy consumption supply chains would be the first candidates for a remodulation of production, but their economic weight makes every decision politically and socially delicate. Hospitals, defence, public transport and critical infrastructure would be left out of any cut plan.
Italian energy-intensive companies: who consumes more and who risks more
A 2025 Istat study on energy-intensive companies, relating to 2023 data, gives a concrete measure of what rationing would mean for the Italian production system. At the top of the ranking in terms of added value are metallurgical activities, with 5.9 billion euros produced by 310 companies, followed by the manufacturing of rubber and plastic items (5.1 billion, 621 companies) and the processing of non-metallic minerals (4.3 billion, 268 companies). Lower in the ranking, but still relevant, are the food, beverage and tobacco industries (3.3 billion, 349 companies) and the manufacturing of coke and products derived from oil refining (3.1 billion, 161 companies). These are sectors without which, as the analysis itself notes, the country’s economy stops functioning: steelworks, chemicals, plastics, glass and ceramics are the manufacturing backbone of Italy, concentrated largely in the North.
A rationing which, if it affected these sectors, would not just be an energy saving measure: it would mean choosing which production chains to slow down, with direct repercussions on employment, exports and supply chains. This is why any realistic emergency plan would seek to intervene first on widespread and flexible consumption – transport, heating, lighting – before touching industrial production.
