The verdict comes from the highest hill in Rome. The timing is that of the news, the strength is that of the "constitutional" history of Sardinia. The powers of the State have always been measured in authority and symbols. The Quirinale Square, in the heart of the capital, for example, since times gone by, has been divided into two buildings, in the center that of the Presidency of the Republic, on the side, like a sentinel of the laws, that of the Constitutional Court.

The coincidence

When the agencies are giving the first flashes of the State-Region agreement on the areas to be devastated with wind turbines and photovoltaic panels, in the Palazzo della Consulta the Supreme Judges are deciding on Sardinia, on its "constitutional" and statutory powers in matters of “Territorial Government”, on primary skills starting from those on «Urban planning and construction». It seems like an astral coincidence, but it isn't. Precisely at the moment in which a "halter" agreement is imposing on Sardinia thousands of hectares of photovoltaic panels to be slapped in the best agricultural lands of the island and thousands of wind turbines to be stuck in the most suggestive headlands, in the halls of the Court of Laws a very serious appeal by the Meloni Government against the Sardinian Region, then led by the same centre-right of Rome. The object of the dispute is a law approved by the Regional Council on 23 October 2023. As often happens, it is an "omnibus" law, much more. The title is eloquent: «Provisions of an institutional, regulatory and financial nature on various subjects». In particular, art. 13. The content is a multiple subject: urban planning, civic uses, energy. The legislative subtitle summarizes it: «Change of destination in the event of installation of renewable energy systems». The content is even more explicit: «for the installation of renewable energy production plants it is mandatory to request the opinion of the Municipality in which the identified areas are located, which expresses itself, with a resolution of the Municipal Council with a majority of two thirds of its members, within twenty days, after which it is waived".

Case study

The dispute is a case study, given the reversed roles. On the one hand the Sardinian Region which with its law wanted to encourage the installation of wind turbines and on the other the Government which wanted to prevent it. Regardless of the positions on whether or not to favor the environmental and landscape devastation of Sardinia, the decisive question, however, is entirely Constitutional.

Constitutional questions

The questions are explicit: can the Sardinian Region plan the use of its territory? Can it legislate on urban planning-energy matters without conflicting with the powers of the State? With that rule opposed by Rome, Sardinia had decided that the urban destination of the areas affected by civic uses could be changed provided that the municipal council had accepted the request for a "variant" with two thirds of the civic assembly. In practice, a rule that affected three different levels of statutory and constitutional "competence".

The “urban planning” primacy

The first: the urban planning modification of that area based on article 3, letter «f», of the Statute which assigns primary competence over «building and urban planning» to the Sardinian Region. The second: to declassify land burdened by «Civic Uses» into an area for the production of renewable energy, in compliance with letter «n» of the same article 3 of the statutory law. The third: a legislative intervention on energy matters making use of paragraph 4, letter "e" of the Statute which assigns concurrent competence to the Region over "production and distribution of electricity". Whoever challenged the Sardinian law, the Meloni Government, was obviously not concerned about the fact that the Region wanted to build a wind farm in an area declared "unsuitable" by the Draghi Decree as it was burdened by "Civic Use", changing its status and urban destination were made, but the anguish of the Rome offices was much more significant: that law could become a "dangerous" precedent on the energy scene.

In Rome, more than Cagliari

In Rome they understood, perhaps more than Cagliari, that allowing Sardinia to use the picklock of the "urban planning" law to decide where to carry out or prohibit energy speculation could have been a serious limit to the wind and photovoltaic assault planned by international lobbies and speculators . For that reason, the State Attorney's appeal to the Constitutional Court was a lightning bolt. The heart of the state war is summarized in Palazzo Chigi's appeal to the High Court: «the limits to the exercise of the primary legislative power of the Region in matters of «building and urban planning» were not observed (art. 3, first paragraph, letter f, of the constitutional law of 26 February 1948, n. 3, containing «Special Statute for Sardinia») and of «civic uses», deriving from respect for the principles of the legal system and, in particular, of the fundamental rules of economic reform -social of the Republic, which includes the indicated interposed state regulation". In practice, the State's lawyers argued that the "Draghi Decree" and the "Urbani Code", the one on Landscape, were fundamental rules for the State and consequently pre-eminent compared to the Sardinian Statute itself. The Government's objection was explicit: the Region went beyond its powers in urban planning matters and beyond. A key step, directly connected to the "vulnus" of suitable areas that the State is arbitrarily imposing on a Special Statute Region with primary competence in Urban Planning matters, supported by an implementation rule that strengthens and expands it.

The Sardinian defense

The reply of the Sardinian Lawyer's Office led by the Attorney General Mattia Pani, with colleagues Giovanni Parisi and Roberto Silvio Murroni, is trenchant: the State's appeal is inadmissible, the questions of unconstitutionality unfounded. Therefore, the verdict of the Constitutional Court became decisive in a lightning dispute. The sentence was not long in coming: "the Government's constitutional challenge is inadmissible." In practice, the State Attorney's Office only proposed a "political" appeal, with the aim of limiting the Region's intervention in a matter that Rome wanted to keep under its exclusive control. It went badly for him. The Judges write: "the State has not fulfilled the burden of exact definition of the question and of precise reasoning which this Court has repeatedly reiterated is particularly relevant in the main appeal, and the lack of which leads to inadmissibility".

Urban planning, the Sardinian Way

The new ruling of the Supreme Court therefore once again raises the issue of the wind and photovoltaic invasion of Sardinia and the only way to try to stop it. To block the speculative avalanche that is hitting the island, the logic of the suitable areas, furthermore conditioned by the "impositions" of the Draghi Decree and the one launched three days ago with the consent of the Sardinian Region, risks being devastating for the island . The sentence just issued by the Constitutional Court reiterates, in fact, only one possible path: a strong, clear and timely urban planning rule that "prohibits", based on primary jurisdiction over urban planning, the upheaval of Sardinia. After all, it would be the same urban planning approach applied by the Government for the ordinary Regions with the aim of "calming" photovoltaics in agricultural areas. A matter, that of urban planning, however, which is the primary responsibility of the Sardinian Region. Therefore, it is possible to stop the assault, you just need to want it.

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