Energy speculation: "This is how we can stop the onslaught."

The island remains without a regulatory cushion against the onslaught of wind and photovoltaic energy . Mauro Pili, former mayor of Iglesias, later regional president, and member of parliament, points the finger at speculators and a political class that isn't always capable of defending the needs of the local communities. "We are facing a radically changed political, legislative, and judicial landscape ," explains Pili. "The Constitutional Court has struck down two regional laws that have proven to be a farce, especially given the avalanche of rulings in recent days from the Sardinian Regional Administrative Court. A regulatory vacuum has been deliberately created, leaving Sardinia without any protection against the advance of speculators, multinationals, and fixers of all kinds. As if that weren't enough, the national government has filled this void with a swindling law that imposes 370,000 hectares of suitable land on Sardinia, capable of devastating the island far and wide."

What can be done to prevent the final assault? For the former parliamentarian, "we need innovative strategies and actions that can change the playing field, change the players —no longer just the Region but especially the participating Municipalities—breaking established patterns thanks to new and relevant European regulations on nature restoration and protection." Last Friday, during a conference in Cagliari, Pili outlined a path forward. " Pratobello 2026 is an implementation plan for Pratobello 2024, a proposed law that was and remains an unprecedented legislative initiative in Italy and Europe, with popular support from 210,729 Sardinians. For nearly two years, the political forces governing the Region have tried in every way to "wear down" and weaken that democratic and popular drive, first by passing two restrictive laws, soundly rejected by the Constitutional Court, and then by allowing the State to occupy the Region's space and constitutional and statutory competence in urban planning. Bringing the Pratobello bill to the floor now would mean condemning it to a contaminated and poisonous path.

And again: " With Law 4/2026 on suitable areas, the Government has effectively imposed a 'mega-urban planning variant' on Sardinia, defining vast areas and territories where environmental, landscape, and identity devastation can be permitted. On the one hand, the State has condemned the Regions' supposedly generic and indiscriminate bans; on the other, it has done the same by imposing vast suitable areas, without any detailed territorial verification. They have decided in Rome, and in the lobby halls, how to manage Sardinia's territorial and urban planning. For this reason, before bringing Pratobello 24 to the Regional Council, a full-blown constitutional war must be waged against the State to fully restore the Region's primary competence in urban planning matters. The fact that the Region has not yet adopted the resolution challenging that disastrous state law speaks volumes about the Regional Council's complicity in the government's harmful decisions regarding renewables. An unprecedented response is needed, starting with the Regional Council."

Pili outlines the priorities. "The plan I proposed is nothing less than the implementation of the Pratobello 2024 law, starting this time with the primary cells of regional autonomy: the municipalities and local communities. Municipalities don't make 'laws,' except on one occasion, when they approve urban planning regulations, when they plan their own territory: those regulations have criminal, civil, and administrative implications. This is a crucial step so that, while we wait to clear the road from state-owned obstacles, we can begin implementing the contents of the Pratobello 2024 bill at local level." A powerful shield, in addition to the statute and the reference to urban planning, could come from the European regulation on nature. "Today, this path is made even more stringent, urgent, and innovative by a decisive innovation at the European level: the approval by the Brussels Parliament of a Regulation on the regeneration and protection of nature. This act has the highest level in the hierarchy of energy sources, that is, higher than the European directives on renewables. It came into force in August 2024, when Pratobello was already deploying its most extensive grassroots involvement. Italy, the State, the Regions, and the Municipalities are required to implement it by September 1, 2026. This represents a strategic opportunity, as the regulation appears to have been written to protect Sardinia, an exclusive island with significant biodiversity, natural landscapes, and unique identity. With that regulation, which has constitutional significance, Europe mandates two actions: regenerating nature and protecting unspoiled nature. The reasoning and actions are consistent: using the Region's primary competence, Article 3, letter f) of the Statute, starting with the Municipalities, which are the primary holders of planning authority for their territories, the European regulation must be implemented through a municipal urban planning variant that protects the territory and its naturalistic values. No longer just one Pratobello, but 377, one for each municipality. The task of evaluating those urban planning variations will no longer fall to the Consulta, but to the Region, which at that point will have to come out into the open: stand on the side of the Municipalities and defend the territories, or the Draghi decree and the State's snatching.