They didn't like it. The "reckless" deal to transform the island's last public airport into private ownership should have remained under the radar. The convocation of the Council of the Chamber of Commerce of Cagliari "flashed out" in the printed paper should have remained a reserved matter for a select few. An unprecedented " modus operandi ", given the seriousness of the decommissioning of Sardinia's main infrastructure, the Cagliari-Elmas airport. Yet, despite the "hole" in the convocation, the chamber leaders insist in silence on a financial operation that is "stealing" from the "public" a fundamental structure for the development of the entire island, placing it in the hands of well-identified financial funds and others ready to deploy dollars, and more, in order to grab Sardinia's main airport asset .

Armored meeting

The meeting scheduled for yesterday remained armored throughout the day without anything leaking out precisely in an attempt to "lower" the spotlight on the Cagliari takeover of "F2i", the financial fund that already owns the airports of Olbia and Alghero. That the leaders of the Cagliari Chamber of Commerce intend to quickly close this operation, which has been pursued for two years in any way, is demonstrated by the fact that, to date, they have not yet replaced the Board of Directors of "Sogaer", the airport company, keeping in his place Marino Piga, the resigning CEO whose appointment, with all that entails, had been soundly rejected in recent days by the State General Accounting Office. De facto vacant positions, ready to be occupied by the new "bosses" who are impatiently waiting to appoint the new leaders of "Sogaer" itself. An eloquent signal that gives a glimpse of an already defined chessboard with which "F2i" will put its own man at the helm of the Cagliari airport to mark the transition from public to private governance of the important airport infrastructure.

The transition is ready

In the handover, already codified in the documents we have, a whole series of "frills" are foreseen for a governance which, in words, is not intended to be exclusively private, but which in fact will be so, precisely by virtue of the share weight that will be assigned to the financial funds compared to the marginal and minority ones of the Chamber of Commerce. It is a question of understanding how much longer the Chamber of Commerce Council will decide to keep the resolutions and conditions of the operation "secret", considering that the validity of those documents will come into force from the moment the procedures are completed to the end. From the Chamber of Commerce Palace, in Largo Carlo Felice in Cagliari, only irritation emerges at the leak of information on the convocation of the Council, a revelation that would have "put on the streets" a plan that aimed to put the Region in front of a fait accompli.

No official position

In this direction it is clear that to date the regional council has not taken an official position, only allowing non-deliberate positions to leak out given that the judicial challenge to the privatization of the airport dates back to the previous council which had given the mandate to the 'General Attorney's Office to challenge the acts of the Chamber of Commerce at all levels. It is probable, however, that the chamber's leaders were forced once again to postpone the public-private transition precisely because of a step, the political-institutional one, which the regional council in office certainly cannot avoid.

Judicial front

Not only is there a relevant issue on the strategic side, the transfer of the most important Sardinian airport to private individuals, but also the judicial one given that the Region is engaged on several fronts, from the "Civil" to the "Administrative" one with a strong mandate and clear: block privatization. It would not be easy for the Presidency of the Region to decide to revoke the mandate of the Sardinian Attorney General, renouncing judicial litigation perhaps in exchange for some pro forma "place" that private individuals would like to offer on the boards of directors of management companies.

“Out” negotiations

The level of the dispute and the importance of the asset at stake therefore prevent negotiations and "exchanges" on the matter, considering that there are infinite vulnerabilities that could be generated in the operation, including the violation of the most basic rules on public evidence given the somewhat surreal methods with which the private interlocutor was chosen. A theme, the legal one, which creates many problems for the Chamber of Commerce and the Financial Fund itself, despite the deployment of forces at the highest levels, with the aim of making high-sounding and noble names weigh on the same judicial matter.

Fear of the Courts

The objective that the private and other "sherpas" are trying to pursue is clear: to identify a "political" formula to convince the Region to give the green light to the operation with the knowledge that a judicial clash would make the whole vulnerable " castle” of “privatization”. Not a simple step given the status of the cases, both civil and administrative, with rulings that leave a thousand doubts on the legitimacy of the private takeover of a public good of that importance, without any public evidence. The lawyers of Confcommercio and the Region, moreover, are ready to "rekindle" the trial before the Regional Administrative Court of Sardinia, frozen after the ruling of the Court of Auditors. Added to this are further pronouncements from competent bodies which, among other issues, have pointed out that the Cagliari Chamber of Commerce has "overflowed" territorially and ended up entering, albeit with a "useless" minority role, in the corporate structure of airports of Alghero and Olbia, infrastructures that are totally outside the territorial jurisdiction assigned to the Cagliari Chamber of Commerce.

Financial games

To this we must add a non-secondary aspect: the entire Sardinian airport system would end up becoming a sort of marginal satellite of "F2i", a financial fund which, through the participation of various international funds, starting with the American "Black Rock", it would end up becoming a slot machine , without any kind of interest in the territorial development of Sardinia. A money-making machine, to be squeezed out in the summer and left in agony for the rest of the year, the exact opposite of a public management called to play a role of guarantee for a public service such as an essential airport on an island.

The invention of the internet

The excuse-invention of a "Sardinian airport network" weighs heavily on all of this, an alchemy built around a table, complete with high-ranking lawyers, conceived with the sole aim of entrusting the management and governance to a well-identified "private group". of the three Sardinian airports. It would be a "private" network where the last remaining public airport in Sardinia, that of Cagliari, could be "chained", the only one capable of breaking the private monopoly that they would like to build on the entrance gates to the island. An indispensable public infrastructure to create tourism development and more, without the suffocating weight of private interest in the management of an essential public good.

Private interest

It is all too clear that the operation pursued by the Cagliari Chamber of Commerce would have only one effect: favoring the sole "financial" and economic purpose of the new private shareholders, to the detriment of the strategic value of the airport. An airport, the one in Cagliari, which would end up remaining hostage to a "network" of commercial and financial interests infinitely distant from the decisive role for the entire island. All this in absolute silence, with the financial and corporate plots advancing heavily in the meanders of public-private affairs in Sardinia.

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