The operation is armored in a letter that has remained "secret" between ambassadors. The letter is initialed by an alphanumeric code: SA 105863. The subject is strictly in English: Extension of the restructuring and concession of Abbanoa . Translated: modification of the bailout conditions of Abbanoa, the public company that has managed Sardinia's water service since 2004. The content is much more than a confession of the original crime. Behind the technical and legal formulas there is an explicit plan: the assignment to private individuals, through an international tender, of water management in Sardinia.
Under the radar blitz
Until now, the privatization plan had been kept under wraps, secret for many. Now, however, it is clearly coming out in the open with the European refusal to postpone the international tender intended to "give away" the water service to private individuals. Tender to be defined no later than December 2025. Water management, as it is easy to imagine, is one of the most delicate issues for the future of the island. A billion-dollar deal involving over 750,000 users, a wealth of networks and plants that has no equal, costing an infinite amount of public money, both in terms of infrastructure investments and in terms of human resources. Tens of billions of euros of investments in 75 years of autonomy, hundreds of millions of state, European and regional funds.
Chess game
What is being played out in the most absolute silence is a real game of chess, all disputed under the table by locking down a nefarious privatization plan in the secret rooms of the Region. A scenario that runs the risk of erasing fundamental strategic choices that had identified, with the 2002 Area Plan, the public management of water as an essential condition for the future of the island. And after all, the Sardinians had been clear about their opposition to entrusting the water resource to private individuals: with 98.6% in the referendum they had rejected the privatization of water. A plebiscite without appeal: 801,300 Sardinians had voted against private water management. The Referendum of 12 and 13 June 2011 marked a point of no return on Sardinian opposition to any hypothesis of privatization of the "well water".
Prison agreement
As if nothing had happened, however, in 2013 the Region secretly negotiated the financial "restructuring" of Abbanoa with Europe. The agreements signed with Brussels envisaged a "public" recapitalization of the water company devastated by debts and management from a public bandwagon. Abbanoa's new regional "foraging" envisaged a disbursement of no less than 187 million euros to be implemented within eight years, with bank credit lines and others, including a guarantee fund from the same region of 42 million euros.
Private "detail".
In total silence, on that occasion, a devastating "detail" was negotiated which is only now emerging in all its virulence. In fact, with the correspondence between Ambassadors remained closed in the drawers of state and regional buildings, dated 27 March 2023, which ended up in our hands and which we are publishing, Europe reiterates to the Region that by 1 January 2026 the Sardinian water service must be entrusted and managed by a private company selected through an international tender.
Never before
Never in the autonomous history of the Region, from 1948 to today, had the "privatization" of such an important service as water, "constitutionally" and "universally" essential for the life of an entire community, been planned and decided. Sardinia, despite Abbanoa's management of the water resource, to be benevolent, does not enjoy stadium support, now risks experiencing one of the most delicate moments in its history with the possible advent of the French or Spanish to the government of a fundamental public good such as water. The letter from the Competition Directorate of the European Commission, delivered to Rue du Marteau in Brussels, is signed by Manuel Martinez Lopez, the deputy head of unit, one of the leaders of the most invasive Community branch in the field of "State Aid".
Private Europe
The addressee of the letter is the Italian Ambassador, Permanent Representative to the European Union, a sort of postman of the State of Rome in a foreign land. The content of the European document is tranchant: the request to change the expiry date of the concession for the Sardinian water service of the Abbanoa company was rejected.
Conditional help
The sequence of events starts, as mentioned, from 2013. On that occasion, the Region and Abbanoa had negotiated financial "aid" with Brussels for the Sardinian water company in exchange for a reduction in the years of service concession, going from the original expiry of 2028 to 2025. In practice, according to that agreement, «Italy undertook to reduce the duration of the concession by three years, from 31 December 2028 to 31 December 2025, and to "organize an open, transparent and non-discriminatory to award the concession to supply the Integrated Water Service in Sardinia starting from 1 January 2026"".
The "coup" privatization
The privatization "coup", therefore, had been signed "silently" without taking the slightest account of the outcome of the referendum against the transfer of public water to private individuals. On 5 January 2023 «the Italian authorities sent the European Commission a pre-notification aimed at obtaining an amendment of the Commission decision of 31 July 2013 – Restructuring aid in favor of Abbanoa SpA» which had made the authorization conditional on the aid of State in exchange for the reduction of the terms of the concession to Abbanoa.
Without too much conviction
To tell the truth, without too much conviction and without any concrete political step, it was the Region that requested a European pronouncement on the modification of that date, asking to restore the previous deadline of 2028. In the request for reinstatement, however, there was no addressed the issue of respecting the outcome of the referendum which had denied any possibility of water privatisation. The fact is that Europe rejected without appeal that clearly "bureaucratic" request from the Region and without too much determination: «the EU rules on State aid for the restructuring of companies in difficulty do not allow for the renegotiation of a restructuring plan that is already been implemented". The regional request just rejected was judged late and inadmissible. A detail of no small importance given that the restructuring of Abbanoa was "legally" completed as early as 2021, and only before that date could a renegotiation of that "suicidal" agreement aimed at selling off to private public water be advanced.
Apology returned to sender
The "specious" claims of the Region to extend the concession by virtue of a loan from the Pnrr obtained for the reconstruction of the water networks were of no avail. The European Union writes: «The Italian authorities could (and should) include provisions in the tender documents aimed at guaranteeing that the winner of the tender (whether it is the outgoing concessionaire or a new concessionaire) continues in a correct and timely manner the implementation of the project". In other words, don't make excuses. Now, in some remote office of the Region, the international tender to "privatize" the water of the Sardinians is beginning to be written. The Spaniards of Acciona, but above all the French of Veolia, already have ambassadors in the regional palaces. The "private" deal of Sardinian water is coveted by many, even in Sardinia.
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