Barges and tank wagons, "virtual" networks and "moderate" solutions, where "virtual" means spans in the air and "moderate" tending to a minimum under high vacuum. If it were not a state decree, it could have been thought of as a joke, but when the Draghi government decided to commission Sardinia, there was no lack of imagination. Cingolani, Roberto, the physicist lent to politics, loves revolving doors. From the top management of Leonardo, the state arms company, to the Ministry of Ecological Transition and today the father of the energy policy of Palazzo Chigi. The step was short and quick, from right-hand man of the banker of Europe who became prime minister to personal advisor to the new prime minister Giorgia Meloni, the only opponent of the former Draghi government. Mysteries of politics and institutions.
Palace dilemma
The dilemma, now, however, more than ever, is burning: continuity or just handover? It won't take long to find out. Sardinia will be the first test bench to reveal the true role of the advocate of solutions that have proved unsuccessful to counter stellar energy price increases, capable only of pursuing, see extra-profit management, an unlimited speculative inflation. The Region, as anticipated yesterday by the Sardinian Union, appealed to the Council of State the shock sentence with which the Lazio TAR had in fact "approved" the decree with which Cingolani and Draghi had put Sardinia against the wall, denying the Sardinian rights and rebalancing, imposing solutions that are useful only for energy lobbies, from electricity to wind power, passing through oil companies and gas operators. The game, therefore, will first and foremost be political.
Energy ambush
The issue at stake is not secondary: it is the economic development of the island, the quality of services, their cost and the region's equality with those of Italy and Europe. The real clash, however, goes much further: at risk is the constitutional seal of the "special" and "autonomist" plant in Sardinia, scarred by a decree that seeks to eliminate competing and exclusive competence on the subject of energy. In summary, the measure adopted by the government had the clear objective of transforming the island into a real energy colony, where to exploit the sun and wind for the exclusive benefit of the state incentive lobbies. All energy to be exported through a leash cable to the Continent, first to Sicily and then to Campania. For Sardinia, on the other hand, only muddled and third-world solutions, with two floating regasifiers, one in the north and one in the south, to wash one's conscience in the face of the only region of Italy and Europe without methane. A decree capable of denying the island the minimum necessary, pursuing only the interests of those who aim to raise cash.
Meloni ball
It is, therefore, first of all the new government that will have to decide whether to adopt the energy policy of Draghi & Company, including the ambush to the constitutional prerogatives of the island, or to take action, perhaps in agreement with the Sardinian Region. The response in this case will not be conditioned by the Greek calends of politics. The appeal just filed by the Sardinian Region at Palazzo Spada, seat of the Council of State, will not wait for the timing of politics. The Presidency of the Council of Ministers must immediately dissolve the reserve by giving or not a mandate to the State Attorney's Office to resist the new appeal of the Region in court, effectively opening a conflict not only judicial but also political-institutional between Palazzo Chigi and the Sardinian Region .
Judicial dispute
From the political-institutional dilemma to the judicial dispute. The Sardinian Region is now forced to chase a sentence, that of the Lazio TAR, capable of overturning not only the principle of loyal collaboration between the State and the Region but also, and above all, the constitutional rank of its Statute and exclusive and competing prerogatives. enshrined in the Charter of Laws. It is difficult, for obvious reasons, to affirm that this is a "political" sentence, but the judges certainly did not shy away from interpreting the "special" rules for the use and consumption of the goodness of the Draghi decree.
The Statute is upset
The main arguments of the Tar judges, and now opposed by the Region, are a real distortion of the most evident statutory and constitutional provisions. The first assumption of the togates of the Lazio TAR is linked to "gas" which, according to the judges, would have nothing to do with the exclusive competence and constitutionally sanctioned by art. 4 of the Autonomous Statute of Sardinia which grants the Region the legislative power in the matter of «Production and distribution of electricity». It is through this first "extravagant" and misleading interpretation that the Judges of the Court of Rome invalidate all the defensive arguments of the Sardinian Regional Advocacy. An interpretation, that of the judges, which leaves dismay. They write in the judgment challenged before the Council of State: "The natural gas sector cannot be automatically included in the concept of electricity, as if the indication of the regional competing competence were an open clause and adaptable to any contingency".
The "blunder" of gas
An arbitrary and unprecedented distinction between the "gas sector" and "production and distribution of electricity". An evident forcing, both in substantive and juridical terms. It would have been enough to investigate the issue both from a jurisprudential and constitutional point of view in order not to run into what appears to be a "bizarre" pro-Draghi interpretation. If they had wanted to, it would not have been complicated to find what the followers of the "constitutional energy" law claim: the temptation to separate "production", "transport" and "distribution", understood as different and distinct phases of the energy process, must be "rejected". It was enough to reflect on what luminaries of rank have repeatedly claimed to avoid succumbing to the legitimate claims of the island. Beniamino Caravita, recently deceased university professor, grew up in law and constitution, considered one of the leading jurists in the field.
Energy governance
His statement cancels in one fell swoop all the artificial scaffolding with which the first instance appeal of the Region was rejected: "The truth - wrote Caravita - is that the constitutional legislator intended to refer to the" government of energy ", as a comprehensive and all-encompassing sector ". Therefore, the Region had the right to negotiate the decree and to sign it after a “strong agreement”. A sacrosanct right linked to the more rational interpretation of the "energy management" but also, possibly, to that "improvement" clause sanctioned by the highest Court.
Most favor
In fact, the Constitutional Court affirms it: «The statutory powers of the special autonomies in energy matters are certainly less extensive than those recognized to the ordinary Regions, in the same context, by art. 117, third paragraph, of the Constitution, so that it must be applied to them, on the basis of the so-called "greater favor clause" provided for by art. 10 of the constitutional law of 18 October 2003, n. 1 […], the corresponding constitutional parameter ". As if to say if there was a lower power-competence of the Sardinia Region compared to those of the ordinary regions, the most advantageous rule should still be applied.
Palazzo Chigi & Spada
These two reminders would have been enough to avert the state's energy coup against Sardinia. The TAR of Lazio, on the other hand, assuming the burden of ruling also on matters of constitutional rank, denied the Sardinian Region any legitimate reason for defense. Now the game moves strongly to Palazzo Chigi and Palazzo Spada, respectively the Council of Ministers and the Council of State. There are issues of merit to address, from energy discrimination to island rebalancing, from unfair prices to denied infrastructures. The Draghi decree and the sentence of the Lazio TAR, after all, for Sardinia, are a real infinite robbery.
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