Airports, the "bizarre" blitz of Cav. Fiorillo

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Almost Minister

He, even anticipating the resounding rejection of the Cagliari Company Court, went further, expressing, on the Ministry's letterhead, assessments as a Minister in pectore, as if he aimed to anticipate, influencing it, the opinion of his top management. This is how that letter, which we are publishing in full, ended up on the table of F2i and the Chamber of Commerce and for information at the Minister's "Cabinet office". A letter that translates into a sort of "full speed ahead" for the operation already rejected by the Judges and the Court of Auditors.

Non-existent mobility

The wording of the letter is a door in the face of bureaucratic grammar. The "non-existent" director of Mobility writes: «The operation (that of the merger, ed.) also appears in line with the objectives pursued in the drafting of the National Airport Plan, which promotes the establishment of airport networks, in law and even in fact. , to encourage synergies, thus proceeding with the rationalization of the national air transport network, to be understood first and foremost as the best use of the current distributed capacity to accommodate the potential of the market". This is the "key" phrase which effectively overrides the merely bureaucratic skills of the director of the Department. The reference to the purposes of the "drawing up" airport plan confirms, in fact, a "bizarre" judgment on the matter given that as "grand commis" of the State he should have limited himself to evaluating current acts and procedures without expressing judgments and opinions, on proceedings in in progress, not concluded, not approved and as such not in force. In practice, in the letter sent to private financial funds and to the Chamber of Commerce of Cagliari, the state official expressed "personal" opinions as part of a procedure which obliges the Minister, instead, to give a mandatory opinion on the matter. Entering, with an official and formal communication, into the merits of an airport plan that "does not exist" and endorsing, without any "third party" study, the presumed economic advantage of the merger-privatization is an unprecedented fact. It is the very premise of the letter that disavows its content.

Beyond the border

The general director writes: «The documentation received was analyzed by this General Directorate, also for the purposes of the provisions of article 5 of Ministerial Decree no. 5217/1997, obviously from a purely technical-legal perspective". An evaluation that should therefore have been limited to "technical-legal profiles" only, but was instead limited to political and personal evaluations, such as those relating to a phantom "drawing up" airport plan that does not exist on a legal level. But it is ministerial representation itself that is called into question.

On his own

In practice, the manager, effectively bypassing the role of the Minister, intervened directly in the procedure on the basis of article 5 of the ministerial decree of 1997, which regulates corporate relationships between public and private entities in the management of airports. It is all too clear that the external representation of the Ministry can only be the responsibility of the Minister alone who dictates the government guidelines on the matter, always respecting the competences, not only legal but also those provided for in the statutes and regulations in force. The state official, completely ignoring the pronouncements of the Sardinian Region, of the Court of Auditors, of the Enac and of the Court of Cagliari itself, goes further and writes: «Following the in-depth studies carried out, also on the subject of members' rights as arising from the complex corporate operation that will lead to the establishment of Nord Sardegna Aeroporti SpA in detecting the correctness of the general structure of the operation, it is represented that the Shareholders' Agreement that will regulate the relationships between the shareholders of the aforementioned Holding appears compliant with the regulatory dictates provided for in the art. . 5 of the aforementioned Ministerial Decree n. 521/1997".

Useless opinion

A de facto ineffective opinion, given that, if anything, it will have to be the Minister who expresses the external position of the department. The director's communication, evading assessments of merit and any possible legal argument, ends up ignoring and questioning what has already been stated by the Judges of the Court of Auditors and the Court of Cagliari itself in the latest ruling of 28 December last. Finally, Fiorillo goes further and states: «the coordinated activity of hubs of the same territorial network can lead to a more rational management of the different traffic components, with the result of increasing the offer».

Private business only

It's a shame that many studies have abundantly demonstrated the opposite: the private monopoly of airport management, even worse in an island region, only produces a speculative effect, capable of contracting both the market and territorial attractiveness. Added to this is a priority assessment on the management of airports: entrusting the keys to the doors of homes, such as airports, to external parties, who also have interests in other airports, could favor other markets to the detriment of Sardinia and the its tourism development. It would be enough to think of the declarations made by the aspiring "colonizers" of the Sardinian airports in relation to the presence of low cost airlines in the Alghero airport. In an official position they stated: «if tour operators want low-cost airlines, they should pay for them». It is clear that the private funds, in this case unduly endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce, as the Courts and Court of Auditors have supported, would only think about their own business and certainly not about the development of the territory.

Court of Auditors doc

Moreover, the Court of Auditors ruled this, apris verbis , rejecting the operation without appeal. The Accounting Judges write: «In conclusion, it can be stated, in line with the ruling of the Council of State, that a corporate shareholding cannot ignore the evaluation of the "needs of the community of reference", which, in the resolution in question, is not sufficiently in-depth and examined by the Chamber of Commerce which focused rather on the alleged non-fungibility of the interlocutor ("Ligantia") identified to conclude the operation. This circumstance takes on an absorbing and prevalent value in relation to the other requirements which is also lacking in terms of financial sustainability and economic convenience".

Endorsement or disavowal

In other words: the operation does not respond to the needs of the Sardinian community, it only thinks about the monopoly of the airports, it is not sustainable on a financial level, it has no economic advantage. Now the position of the State is in the hands of the Minister, with a dilemma: to endorse or disavow Cavalier Costantino Fiorillo, director of mobility, including the "unsustainable" one in Sardinia.