Ivan Allegranti, Lecturer in Disaster Risk Management at the EU Institute of European Law, Faculty of Law, Comenius University Bratislava[1]
This Essay explores the intersection of natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resilience of Italy’s “Made in Italy” fashion sector, focusing on the Marche region, an area crucial to the Italian fashion industry, traditionally composed of micro enterprises within a regional supply chain. In 2016 and 2017, severe earthquakes devastated the region, a crisis that was later compounded by the pandemic. While the Italian government introduced emergency legislation like Decree-Law No. 189/2016 and the Ordinances of the Extraordinary Commissioner of Reconstruction to support economic recovery, the fashion sector received comparatively less attention. Drawing also on the Japanese experience-specifically the Business Continuity Guidelines introduced after the 2011 Fukushima disaster-this Essay highlights regulatory gaps, calls for the development of targeted recovery frameworks, and advocates for closer collaboration between regional and national fashion associations to strengthen post-disaster recovery, particularly in light of the newly adopted Codice della Ricostruzione (Reconstruction Code).
I. Introduction
COVID-19 brought the world-and the “Made in Italy” fashion supply chain-to a standstill for months,[2] prompting governments in the European Union[3] and beyond to implement emergency regulations aimed at mitigating the resulting economic crisis. Italy was no exception. At the time of the outbreak of the pandemic, the Emilia-Romagna and Marche regions were already facing the consequences of two seismic events: the Emilia Romagna earthquake of 2012 and Marche region seismic events of 2016–17, respectively. Although both regions play a strategic role in the Italian fashion production chain, this Essay focuses mostly on the Marche Region.
To provide an overview of the current state of the Italian fashion supply chain, it is useful to present some data. The Italian fashion industry ranks first among the 27 EU member states in terms of exports, number of employees, and number of factories. More than 53,000 fashion-related companies operate across Italy, 88.5% of which are micro enterprises and the fashion supply chain contributes to approximately 5.1% to the national GDP thus employing over 1.2 million people.
Like the Marche region, the Emilia-Romagna region is both frequently impacted by natural disasters and fundamental to the “Made in Italy” brand. Emilia-Romagna also features a district-based production system, like the Carpi district, employing approximately 28,000 people in the fashion sector across specialized zones focused on shoes or apparel.
The Marche region is another key hub of Italian fashion, particularly known for its “footwear district” in the provinces of Fermo and Macerata.4 The region contains numerous companies producing their own branded footwear or operating as third-party manufacturers for other companies producing similar products.5 Aside from a few large firms, the region is dominated by micro enterprises, often family-run and passed down through generations.6
II. Natural Disasters And Covid-19 in The European Legal Framework
The European Union’s DRM and DRR policies are inspired by the United Nations DRM and DRR framework such as the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015, and subsequently by Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which both promote a shift toward resilience and prevention across sectors like infrastructure, health, and climate adaptation. In particular, the EU Action Plan on the Sendai Framework further integrates sustainable development principles, aiming to improve risk awareness and cross-sectoral cooperation within the European Union Member States by implementing, inter alia, the European Commission’s proposal of 30 November 2016, or, as stated in paragraph 28 of the Action Plan, the development of inter-regional cooperation to prevent disaster risks, especially under civil protection policies.
Despite the breadth and ambition of these policies, the predominantly financial focus has raised criticism. For example, the 2019 amendments to Decision No. 1313/2013/EU included financial measures for disaster response and fund allocation but lacked comprehensive strategies to ensure inclusivity and address the needs of vulnerable populations, like the European Accessibility Act which eliminates and prevents barriers to the free movement of certain accessible products and services arising from divergent accessibility requirements within the Member States. In this sense, Regulation (EU) 2016/369 establishes a humanitarian framework for emergency support in the European Union, providing needs-based assistance such as food, healthcare, shelter, and protection. However, it does not explicitly address the specific vulnerabilities of groups like persons with disabilities, children, or the elderly. This omission highlights the need for more inclusive disaster response policies that ensure tailored support for those most at risk alongside the regulation’s broader humanitarian objectives.7
Lastly, during the pandemic, the European Union launched the Next Generation EU (NGEU) recovery plan to support economic revival and resilience building. The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which provides grants and loans to Member States based on national recovery plans emphasizing green and digital transitions, supported most of the NGEU’s €750 billion budget. The plan included financial support for innovation, private sector solvency, and crisis preparedness programs such as RescEU. Like other EU instruments, the plan primarily focused on financial recovery, rather than ensuring tangible protection for vulnerable groups during natural disasters.
III. Social Consequences Of Natural Disasters
The absence of a well-structured legal and economic framework affects not only short-term recovery, but also the long-term stability of entire regions and the psychological well-being of their inhabitants. The 2016 earthquake in Italy illustrates this clearly: the lack of targeted recovery measures for the “Made in Italy” fashion sector in the Marche region led to a fragmented, slow, and ultimately incomplete reconstruction process. As a result, many businesses were forced to close, and individuals left their hometowns-particularly in rural areas.
Companies that failed to obtain access to support mechanisms often relocated to more stable regions, accelerating and exacerbating the abandonment of smaller towns and villages.8 Situated more than 600 meters above sea level, these rural areas often lack access to essential services like hospitals, public transportation, post offices, and banks.9 The population is also aging, with an average age of over 65, making mobility and accessibility even more difficult. Even before the earthquakes, these communities were small. For example, the province of Macerata included numerous towns with populations averaging just 1,000 residents; only Camerino exceeded 6,000 inhabitants and Macerata (circa 40.000). Since 2008, the area has experienced a population decline of approximately 10% over 12 years. However, this trend is not limited to the earthquake-affected provinces. The Marche region as a whole lost over 11,000 inhabitants between 2011 and 2021, decreasing from 1,512,672 to 1,501,406 residents. Although the 2016 disaster accelerated this decline, other factors-such as the 2008 financial crisis-contributed to a long-term pattern of demographic contraction.
For this reason, the continuous and ongoing migration of people has indirectly impacted all sectors of the economy, including those companies comprising Italy’s fashion supply chain. For these areas to recover and thrive, it is crucial for national and regional institutions to collaborate effectively and offer clear protective measures for businesses. Without such support, rural areas risk becoming depopulated and economically stagnant, deepening the challenges posed by natural disasters and further diminishing their resilience and sustainable development.
IV. The Italian “Emergency” Legislation Protecting The Fashion Supply Chain Between Natural Disasters and The Covid-19 Pandemic
In August 2016 and January 2017, a series of earthquakes left a lasting mark on the Marche region’s economic-industrial system. The territory of Macerata suffered the most significant damage. In response, Italy enacted Decree-Law No. 189 of October 17, 2016 following the 2016-17 earthquakes, which, together with the emergency ordinances issued by the Extraordinary Commissioner for Reconstruction, comprised the primary legal framework for managing the Marche emergency. Each emergency (man-made or natural disaster) in Italy is managed by a different Commissioner, appointed ad hoc.10 The legal tools at their disposal differ for each event but consist primarily of Special Ordinances that apply only for the time period and territory as defined by the national decree.11
Ultimately, within the fragmented supply chain of Italian fashion, many of these businesses lacked the resilience mechanisms or held enough liquidity to comply with the protocols or survive the long shutdowns during the pandemic. Italy’s fashion sector was left without targeted economic protection, especially in central regions like Marche. In practice, a legal system capable of uniformly addressing the crisis caused by the earthquake and the pandemic in relation to the reconstruction and the reopening of the economic-productive system-both of the fashion sector and of individual productive sectors of the Marche region (or other Italian regions)-was never created.12
The pandemic compounded existing difficulties, and the limitations of the previous Commissioner’s Ordinances became more apparent. Italian national decrees-particularly the DPCM of 11 March 2020 and subsequent protocols signed by Confindustria Moda and the trade unions (Femca-CISL, Filctem-CGIL, Uiltec-UIL)-initially led to widespread closures across the fashion industry until and unless these companies could convert their operations to produce goods needed for health-promotion during the pandemic. Only factories that converted their production to health-related goods like protective masks were permitted to remain open; all others were required to suspend operations. The Protocol of 15 April 2020, reinforced by the Protocol of 2 May 2020, introduced a detailed operational framework for restarting the production line, including rules on workplace sanitation, remote work, and health screening, grounded in references to earlier decrees such as the DPCM of 8 March 2020, as well as Legislative Decree No. 81/2008 on worker safety. Nevertheless, these frameworks predominantly focused on occupational health and did not provide financial aid or structural support for enterprises already weakened by past disasters.
V. A Comparative Law Lesson: Japan’s Business Continuity Guidelines Framework
For Italy to craft a better response, it is useful to examine how other countries have responded to similar natural disasters to avoid repeating Italy’s inadequate handling of such crises. For instance, Japan is widely regarded as a global leader in DRM and DRR, offering one of the most comprehensive frameworks for economic resilience in the face of natural disasters through its Business Continuity Guidelines. Developed in response to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear disaster, these guidelines were designed to ensure that businesses, like small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), could maintain or quickly resume operations despite catastrophic disruptions.
The Business Continuity Guidelines are state-issued directives that each company in Japan is expected to adapt and implement independently, based on the company’s specific production characteristics. The Guidelines provide a structured roadmap covering risk assessment, emergency response protocols, supply chain resilience, and communication strategies, with applicability at both the governmental and enterprise levels. Their effectiveness lies not only in minimizing disruption and preventing prolonged inactivity but also in fostering cooperation between the state and private companies. Rather than imposing rigid top-down measures, the state offers a comprehensive guidebook that supports companies in developing their own tailored continuity strategies. The Guidelines’ collaborative model ensures that businesses are not left alone in navigating post-disaster recovery. Instead, companies are equipped with both the tools and institutional backing to remain resilient. Ultimately, the Guidelines establish a unified preparedness framework that strengthens the resilience of the national economy against future natural disasters and related crises.
However, to avoid a slow recovery for the “Made in Italy” sector in the Marche region similar to the measures taken during the pandemic, it would be necessary for regional or national fashion sector associations to draft a memorandum guiding the reconstruction of their respective supply chains following a natural hazard. The entire sector would benefit from memoranda jointly developed by trade associations and companies, as these would help ensure that businesses are better prepared and capable of responding effectively after a disaster. Like Japan’s Business Continuity Guidelines–which provide a legal framework for companies–sector-specific memoranda in the fashion industry should be drafted by the associations themselves because they best understand the operational complexities of their production systems.
Once the state adopts the memoranda and grants special legal force, they could ensure continuity of production, market stability, and financial security for individuals, micro and SMEs. This could include, as seen in Japan, coordinated financial planning to prevent liquidity crises post-disaster, thereby shielding companies from being overwhelmed by reconstruction costs and production losses before full recovery. In practice, this meant that many Japanese companies remained operational in the aftermath of the disaster-unless they were entirely destroyed-allowing a wide range of entrepreneurs to resume activities (almost) without interruption. Even if the building did not “survive” the disaster, the cash flow of single companies was consistent, thus allowing entrepreneurs of the Tohoku province to fully relocate without an excessive loss of money. The same could happen also in Italy if such protocols and memoranda were created and entered into force among parties, as it would allow entrepreneurs to be fully prepared for future hazards.
Production machinery, for instance, often costs hundreds of thousands of euros. If clear guidelines existed on how to apply for financial relief or protect employment during emergencies-and if smaller companies were supported in setting up internal emergency funds-they could better withstand such events.13 Together with this, memoranda and laws targeting disaster recovery measures would be beneficial for all parties as it would allow them to be prepared for catastrophes as well as limit the potential dangers of those directly involved in manufacturing.14
Given that micro enterprises form the core of Italy’s fashion production industrial know-how, a comprehensive and widespread approach is essential to safeguard them. This would not only ensure their survival but could also preserve regional identity, artisanal heritage, and long-term industrial competitiveness, especially in vulnerable territories like the Marche region.
A potential turning point may now be emerging. With the recent approval of the Codice della Ricostruzione,15 Italy has established a more solid legal foundation for post-disaster reconstruction. Most importantly, Article 816 aims to ensure an orderly and safe post-disaster reconstruction, as it establishes that interventions must be coordinated with urban planning, avoiding uncontrolled expansion by emphasizing the importance of community participation, fostering transparency and shared decision-making. Article 9, which needs to be read together with Articles 11 and 12 of the same Law, then, explains in detail how the affected population can seek for the State’s contribution of the affected population and the respective financial requirements in order to access them. Lastly, Article 10 recognizes the need of restoring the loss due to the catastrophe of movable goods (for example a watch) and registered movable goods (a car or machinery used for work), thus including for the first time a comprehensive protection on people’s patrimony also if severely damaged by the natural disaster.
Although the provisions remain general,17 the Codice della Ricostruzione, along with the Ordinances by the Extraordinary Commissioner and provisions in formal protocols or memoranda jointly drafted by trade associations, businesses, and state institutions, would be an extremely valuable strategy as it would allow all the parties to be involved in the recovery strategy. In fact, the micro entrepreneurs of the Marche region’s fashion supply chain would be fully included (because their voices have been heard during the drafting sessions of the memoranda/protocols) in the reconstruction process. In doing so, Italy could become a model for post-disaster recovery, offering a unified and robust legal framework rooted in institutional backing and industry-specific expertise, and which fully listens to its beneficiaries whose voices are often not heard, resulting in slow and incomplete reconstructions processes, leaving behind those who are not organized in a traditionally structured company.
[1]Ivan Allegranti is Lecturer in Disaster Risk Management at the Department of EU Law, Comenius University Bratislava, ivan.allegranti@flaw.uniba.sk.
[2] Ivan Allegranti, Fashion Brands, Personal Data and COVID-19: Producing Fashion in Italy During a Pandemic, 1 Derecho de la Moda II 131, 131–53 (2022).
[3]Europe’s Moment: Repair and Prepare for the Next Generation, at 1, COM (2020) 456 final (May 27, 2020).
4 The Marche region consists of four provinces: Ascoli Piceno, Fermo, Macerata, and Pesaro e Urbino. Of these, Macerata and Ascoli Piceno were the two affected by the 2016–2017 earthquakes. See Insieme per la Ricostruzione, le Marche al Lavoro, Regione Marche, https://www.regione.marche.it/Regione-Utile/Terremoto-Marche (last visited August 16, 2025) [https://perma.cc/8PBZ-PAGV].
5 For example, Santoni, Prada and Tod’s produce their footwear in the Marche region.
6 Marco Cucculelli, Il passaggio generazionale nelle piccole e medie imprese nelle Marche, 8 Armal Lavoro Flash (2008) (It.); Marco Cucculelli, Family Firms, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development, 2 Economia Marche J. Applied Econ. 2 (2012); Adam Szirmai, Wim Naudé & Micheline Goedhuys, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Development, Unu-Wider Studies in Development Economics (Oxford Univ. Press 2011).
7 Ivan Allegranti, The European Protection of People with Disabilities in Lands Triggered by Natural Hazards: An Unfinished Matter, Collected Papers of the Univ. of Rijeka (July 12, 2025) (unpublished manuscript) (on file with author).
8 Ivan Allegranti, Il diritto a restare nella propria terra: finanziare il futuro per uno sviluppo sostenibile nelle terre del doppio disastro (June 24, 2024) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Camerino) (on file with author).
9 Ibid.
10 For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, General Domenico Arcuri was appointed, while the 2016–17 Marche earthquakes were overseen first by Pietro Farabollini, Vasco Errani, Paola De Micheli, Giovanni Legnini, and now Guido Castelli.
11 Debora Caldirola, Il commissario straordinario nell’emergenza, 2 Amministrare (2010), 200; Sara Spuntarelli, Le ordinanze “speciali” del Commissario straordinario per la ricostruzione del Centro Italia, 2 Queste Istituzioni (2021), 53.
12 See Allegranti, supra note 2, at 134.
13 For instance, it’s worth recalling that one of the biggest problems in the fashion production system of Italy is that most of the companies have less than 10 employees and are family owned. Therefore, the owners concentrate almost all their resources into manual labor. See supra Section I.
14 In this regard, smaller companies-unlike larger brands such as the Florence-based fashion house Patrizia Pepe, which relied on internal liquidity and employee solidarity to withstand the February and March 2025 floods, successfully restoring flooded areas and resuming full production within a short period without seeking state aid-would receive critical support enabling them to remain resilient in the face of natural disasters, thereby potentially avoiding or reducing the need for state intervention.
15 The Codice is a law and not a decree law or legislative decree, which are acts with the force of law but less poignant due to their secondary legal efficiency.
16 In fact, the new Codice aims to give a general regulatory imprinting as in the first seven Articles it regulates the procedures that enable the provisions included to be fully operational which are, for instance, the end of the “national emergency period” declared by the prime minister and the nomination of an extraordinary commissioner who has the obligation to set out the rules and the criteria to be adopted for the reconstruction (Article 2 and 3 of the Codice della Ricostruzione) together with leading the entire reconstruction process of the affected areas.
17 The ordinances of the Extraordinary Commissioner to be integrated with the Codice to fully adapt to the specific territory and reconstruction intervention are still required.