European industry is going through a period of major transformations, and for energy-intensive producers the challenges are greater than ever, in a global aluminum market under the pressure of geopolitical tensions and high energy costs.

“Europe is slowly starting to wake up and understand that without industry it has little chance of success,” said Marian Năstase, Chairman of the ALRO Board of Directors, quoted by Financialintelligence.

“As you have seen, the European discourse has changed. We have moved to industrialization, we have all realized, or we are slowly, slowly starting to wake up to reality, that without industry we have little chance of success in a world where, as you have seen, the industrial backbone is what matters. And this is, in my opinion, the great, let’s say, gain of this complex geopolitical situation. But, my opinion is that Europe is slowly, slowly starting to wake up. And this means that, for all the industrial companies that still exist, you do everything you can to keep them alive,” said Năstase.

In his opinion, in Europe the degree of industrialization must be increased and financial resources must be allocated as judiciously as possible, this being the great challenge: “You have to do everything you can to increase the degree of industrialization. You have to allocate the resources, which are increasingly scarce at the European level, as judiciously as possible. Here, I think, is actually the biggest challenge. How the money is allocated. My opinion is that this is what happens, in times of peace and when the world is doing well, you still do stupid things, you throw money out the window, on things you don’t need, you finance things you don’t need. (…) At the European level, you have seen how it was. I mean, we still see it partially. We finance things that we really don’t need, useless. That’s not the case at Alro. Being in a permanent crisis, we have always been very careful about costs, but in general, at the European level, we have financed and are still financing things that we really don’t need. Useless”.

In his opinion, European states must do everything possible to keep existing industrial companies alive and to increase the degree of industrialization of European economies.

“ALRO remains one of the central pillars of Romanian industry. We must do as much as possible to develop other pillars and strengthen the others that exist,” says Marian Năstase.

Last year, ALRO had solid operational growth and a focus on European competitiveness. Thus, ALRO ended 2025 with revenues of RON 3.9 billion and record production of processed products. Revenues were up by 14% in 2025, in a difficult context for the aluminum industry.

ALRO invested RON 145 million (approx. EUR 30 million) in 2025, in technology, efficiency and quality. The ALRO Group reported EBITDA of RON 219 million in 2025.