Access is denied. As befits the evoked transparent administration that makes a fine show on the home page of the website of the Chamber of Commerce of Cagliari - Oristano. Topic forbidden to those who are not authorized. The server sends back to the sender the request for access to the documents of a Christmas resolution reserved for a select few. The praetorian notice board questioned on the act that traces the future of Cagliari airport lets only one detail escape: Sogaer exploratory mandate - Chamber council resolution n.121 of 20 December 2021 (in the photo). The resolution was approved. The operation, which emerged in all its details in the investigation of the Sardinian Union, is not only confirmed, but explodes in all its evidence with an act that was to remain armored in the rooms of Largo Carlo Felice in Cagliari.
Financial undergrowth
An operation managed directly in the undergrowth of finance, politics and high-altitude business, with terrestrial implications that imposingly appear on the horizon. Certainly the resolution of the Chamber Council is only apparently smoky and generic, in reality there are all the conditions that would allow the sale of the airport to be closed in total autonomy, on the altar of far-fetched synergies, recalled only as a screen of a an operation entirely aimed at canceling the public management of the Cagliari airport and entrusting it to the "foreigners" of high finance, both in Italy and around the world. In practice, a climb destined to take the keys to the Nuraghi island away from Sardinia. And it doesn't take long to decode the resolution which ends up in our hands anyway.
Curtain up
To uncover everything is the investigation of our newspaper which reveals, documents in hand, the change in the shareholding structure of the management company of Cagliari airport, Sogaer. According to the documents we make public, it emerges that the F2i financial fund appears out of the blue among the shareholders, with a modest, but insidious, 0.205%. A share that opens the casket of via dei Trasvolatori in Elmas, giving a glimpse of the specter of a capital increase capable of transforming that infinitesimal share into an absolute majority. A scenario already seen in past years, first in Alghero and then in Olbia, both of which ended up in the hands of F2i and the Americans of Black Rock. In the midst of the publication of the documents on the Unione Sarda, Sogaer is "forced" to bring the airport decommissioning plan out into the open, albeit in the silence outside. It was December 17 when the management company of the South Sardinia airport put a "patch" to silence on the operation, held, until then, all under the table.
The word "magic"
The note, signed by the flying woman, the president of the airport management company, Monica Pilloni, of strict banking faith and considered by all to be directly linked to the President of the Chamber of Commerce Maurizio De Pascale, true deus ex machina of the operation, is a jumble of justifications that would hardly stand up to the advance of logic. The watchword, without any credible explanation, is the "complementarity" between the three airports in Sardinia.
The Trojan horse
The Trojan horse, a weak mirror for the larks, is put in black and white in the note from Sogaer, taken up in full, by the resolution of the Chamber of Commerce: "it signals the opportunity to implement synergies considered indispensable to face the changes imposed by the recent crisis caused from the pandemic, but above all necessary to ensure a strategic role in the chessboard of air transport, to increase negotiating weight and competitiveness at national and European level and to intercept a wider demand for tourist services ". Formulas and perspectives, all expressed with pompous and haphazard proclamations of an airport unit, which actually bring out a real screen, used as a magic formula to cover the real goal: to put Cagliari airport in the hands of F2i, losing totally the essential role of the "public sector" and Sardinian institutions in the management of Sardinia's main gateway. And it doesn't take a private investigator to find out. In the resolution there is a paragraph, much more than a confession, which suggests that there will be no real public evidence in the identification of any industrial partners. The plan for the sale of the airport, under the formula of the search for synergies, is already pre-packaged.
Climbing
Sogaer, climbing on the mirrors, tries to justify the choice of subjects with whom to deal with the operation, even going so far as to affirm that the search for possible synergies is "supported by the opportunities for comparison ensured by the participation of the same (Sogaer ed) in the management Assoaeroporti ». Too bad that in that forum, a sort of confindustria of the skies, Sogaer is able to entertain relations only with some well-identified subjects. In short, he uses the truly laughable justification of Sogaer's participation in Assoaeroporti to establish relations with none other than “with the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the management companies of the Olbia and Alghero airports”. In short, the Assoaeroporti becomes the excuse-justification for having direct relations with Roberto Barbieri, the proconsul of F2i in Sardinia, the former senator of the Democratic Party who suddenly became the father of the island's airports.
Name and surname
If up to this point both the name of Barbieri and the mission in Sardinia had not been clear, the president of Sogaer takes her part to circumscribe, with barbed wire, the fence within which the operation must be concluded. In fact, in the resolution, after having listed the positions as chairman of Barbieri in Sardinia, he is keen to remember that the talks also took place with "the managing director of the Naples airport management company". Too bad that the person is always the same, that Roberto Barbieri who, on behalf of F2i, also and above all controls the Capodichino airport in Naples, of which he is the managing director. What do the airports of Olbia, Alghero and Cagliari have to do with that of Naples? In this scenario, therefore, the Sardinian airports would end up under the "Bourbon Kingdom" of the Naples airport, which perhaps aims to have Sardinia and its airports as satellites of the Vesuvius airport.
All already decided
The resolution of the chamber council is actually a "proforma", which endorses the plan already written and defined in the secret rooms of high finance. And it will certainly be Sogaer, however, to pay for the rich consultancy that is already facing the path of privatization disguised by the "synergy between airports". The act of the Chamber of Commerce foresees four steps which in reality already appear all codified and kept under wraps, to deceive everyone, or almost everyone, to be the protagonists of this operation. The resolution envisages analyzing possible forms of synergies and integration, identifying a legal and financial advisor, choosing a qualified law firm and, then, even a communication agency to maintain relations with the press. In short, from legal affairs to the bow for the media. The task that the resolution assigns to the law firm to be appointed is emblematic: «to provide the necessary technical support in defining the management structure and in preparing the consequent shareholders' agreements». Therefore, "shareholder agreements" to manage an intercontinental airport, subject to a forty-year concession regime by ENAC. The president of the Chamber of Commerce, Maurizio De Pascale, on several occasions, stated that he had already discussed the issue with both ENAC and the Region. There is, of course, no evidence to the contrary, but it is equally certain that both ENAC and the Region have heavily denied having ever spoken and shared this operation with anyone.
Shareholders' agreement
One fact is certain, ENAC cannot stand by, given that, according to what is written in the resolution, a "shareholder agreement" is in fact being configured for the management of a State airport concession. And it is no coincidence that the act of the Chamber of Commerce, fully accepting the request of the president of Sogaer, arranges to follow, "in close and frequent connection, the evolution of the confrontation, reserving the right to take any decision". The chamber council, then, writes that it wants to operate within the current regulations on "Publicly owned companies", but, in reality, it has already decided that the operation must be done with F2i, in spite of public evidence . Sardinia, therefore, is destined to give its keys of entry to the new proconsul of the skies who came from Naples, the flying senator, who became a manager of high finance, who prepares the checkmate for Sardinian airports, with silence and complicity of many.
Sword of Damocles
The games, therefore, would seem to have already been made, except for twists that could prove to be much more delicate in the continuation of the operation. If only all around the airport revolve interests and business which, in some passages kept secret, have seen an overlap of public and private interests worthy of every attention. At stake is, above all, the most delicate aspect of an infrastructure such as an airport: safety and its future usability. A chapter to be uncovered with lots of ENAC opinions, first negative and then overturned. At stake, then, there is an imposing game that risks weighing like a sword of Damocles on the entire operation where private interests have, in some relevant correspondences, heavily boundless in the public one, with burning papers and documents still armored in the file. of the bargain to be consumed on the shores of the Santa Gilla airport.
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