Airplanes, the Sardinian crime of the identity card

Galeotta was the identity card so much so that Sardinia eventually remained on the ground. It will be that, by now, the Sardinians are used to seeing them in every color, it will be that territorial continuity is more and more a mirage, the fact is that what is happening in these months in the Nuraghi Island goes far beyond the surreal. From the cancellation, without a shot being fired, of the single rate for flights to and from Sardinia to an old-time tender to replace the Alitalia disaster. What happens, or rather does not happen, in the skies of the island is paradoxical. Everything revolves around that fateful document, put on file by the digital advent in the public administration, and which now, instead, is returning forcefully to the fore. The identity card, in addition to the color of the hair and eyes, records the date and place of birth and, above all, the residence.

Rights canceled

In spite of the free movement of goods and people, enshrined in all the treaties of the last 40 years, in Sardinia out of the blue, it was established that without an identity card you cannot enter. The leap back is a decade, at least since the single air fare was introduced by unanimous vote of parliament. It was a cost of the ticket capable of putting every European citizen, in transit from an Italian airport, on the same rate plan, who had to move to or from Sardinia. In practice, a real tariff "bridge" that would allow every resident citizen of the European Union to move without discrimination, without the island suffering further obstacles to be reached.

Single rate

The mechanism of the "single tariff" facilitated, or rather of rebalancing with respect to the island gap, in 2011 was decided for nine months of the year with the excuse that there were insufficient resources to "compensate" all months of the year. A single tariff was adopted with the exclusion of the period 15 June - 15 September. The Minister's decree that sanctioned it was never challenged and no European procedure was initiated to oppose a sacrosanct right. On the contrary, the government, in 2015, under pressure from emigrants and others, decided to introduce, with decree 185 of 25 November, a rule which provided: "In order to guarantee a complete and effective system of air connections from and for Sardinia, which allows the reduction of inconveniences deriving from the condition of insularity and ensures the continuity of the right to mobility even for non-resident passengers, the Sardinia Region is assigned the sum of € 30 million for 2015 ". In practice, the executive had given a clear and binding indication: even "non-residents" must have access to a single tariff for the whole year. The Region in fact never used that money because the tender with the extension was never made. The government, in the following years, intervened, however, to reiterate that allocation for a three-year period, committing 90 million euros with the same objective aimed at non-residents. Nothing was done, messes and delays prevailed and the race remained at the stake. The money remained unused.

The coup of the skies

Now, instead, with a unilateral deed, never written and never really negotiated, it is decided, instead of extending it, to cancel the single tariff also for the other nine months. As if to say, in Sardinia you enter only with the residence, all the others will pay double, triple and even quadruple, if it goes well. Some may think that this treatment will, however, favor resident Sardinians, in reality it will constitute unprecedented damage not only for Sardinia but also for that development potential that will be heavily affected by very serious discrimination. It does not take a scientist to understand that Sardinia will be the only Region of Europe, and of Italy, with reduced mobility.

Rome and Milan

A citizen of Milan to go by train to Rome will pay the same as a citizen of Milan bound for Rome. Nobody will ask him for an identity card to verify residence and make him pay more. Both the Lazio and the Lombard citizens, as well as all European citizens, will benefit from the European citizenship established by the Maastricht Treaty already in 1992. Everywhere in Europe and in Italy they will be free to move without discriminatory tariffs. Everywhere, except in Sardinia, the only true European island.

Continuity of territories

And, moreover, it is the very term of “territorial” continuity that unequivocally marks its meaning: to connect and give continuity to territories, so that citizens, without discrimination, can move freely. Instead, with a stroke of the sponge, without an apparent perpetrator of the crime, an inviolable right of Sardinia to free movement was canceled. In reality, a "promoter" of this operation exists, always wedged in the Roman palaces and beyond: the ghost of Alitalia. It was the CEO of the "dissolved" airline, in 2011, who wrote to the Region to grant it three months of summer free will on the routes to and from Sardinia. Concession granted. Now that Alitalia no longer exists, the ghost of the national airline continues to hover over the skies of the island. The result is devastating: the primacy of free movement has been canceled. The Sardinian emigrants, considered non-residents by law, and all those, including tourists, who, instead of reaching Sardinia at prohibitive prices, will prefer to go elsewhere, perhaps in places where perhaps you spend more to live there, will pay the consequences firsthand. but less to get there.

Procurement & identity

The identity card was not enough to enter Sardinia, now, in these last days, the fateful identification document of the legal manager of Volotea, the low cost company that dared to participate in the tender to manage, for seven months, in an emergency, as usual, the territorial continuity to and from Sardinia. A low cost that challenges the ghost of Alitalia is an unprecedented affront. It had never happened before. And the tender, managed by the Region, should have made it clear, since the very low participation of companies, that probably something in those specifications was not working. If only two of the 11 companies invited participated in any question, it was necessary to ask it. The management of the race, then, is the most surreal thing that could happen in the third millennium. Volotea, which wins all the routes with discounts, in many cases, much higher than the offer of ITA, Italia Trasporti Aereo, forgets to attach a photocopy of the identity card of the legal representative.

Without planes

The commissioners of the tender are intransigent and with an exclusion measure they eliminate the only low cost company that had responded to the contract. All this less than ten days after the end of Alitalia, without knowing if ITA has, not the identity card, but the same planes for territorial continuity to and from Sardinia. There is a detail, however: it was a tender carried out with the primordial methods of offers in sealed envelopes and on paper.

Prehistoric race

Prehistoric stuff of public administration. All over Europe, and in the same single commissioning center of the Region, tenders have been telematic for years. With a lot of computerized procedures and digital signature, without the need for a photocopy of an identity card. Volotea could be the assignee of the tender, carry out the service until the judges' decision on the peremptory nature of the identity card, and at the same time save the Region a few million euros, given the auction discounts. In Sardinia, however, to enter, emigrants or tourists, and win tenders, you need an identity card, as not even in the days of the Nuraghi.