The grace is that of a bulldozer , the elegance that of a steamroller. When it comes to plundering Sardinia for the State of Rome there is no Constitution that matters, let alone the Autonomous Statute, the one which in 1948 had made the Sardinian Region "Special". They crumpled it up like a bullet to be thrown into the next bin within reach, trampled on and ignored as if it didn't exist.

Last "bite"

The latest "snatch" takes place on the altar of the last great State "overload", that of critical and rare materials, the new frontier of "evergreen" business. Imagine if faced with billion-dollar deals with the scent of "Lithium" or "Strontium", "Tungsten" or "Arsenic" they could waste time behind constitutional "frills", between primary or competing skills. Stuff that would make the ancient Savoy Government pale, when it took possession of the island's mines to "rob" lead and zinc with concessions and royal decrees. Since then, a lot of ore has passed through the tunnels of Monteponi and Ingurtosu, Montevecchio and Silius. A real "split" consumed in the bowels of the earth with prefectural permits and authorizations from the Royal Mining Corps. 184 years have passed since then. Out of the blue, with a coup de main and a coup of the head, the State pushes Sardinia back almost two hundred years, wresting from it "manu militari" the jurisdiction over mines and quarries assigned to it by the Constituents of '48. It was article three, letter «m» of the Autonomous Statute of Sardinia that recognized Viale Trento as having primary jurisdiction over the «exercise of the state and property rights of the Region relating to mines, quarries and salt pans». A double recognition, the first to repay the island for the depredation of the Savoys, the second as a "reward" for the contribution of the Sardinian mines, from lead to coal, to the post-war development of Italy. In Rome, not only did they not care, but the buildings of the capital have devised, in their own way, an "apparently" simple mechanism to get around the "constitutional" obstacle. In the premise of the mining "decree" just converted into law they inserted a formula which in the calculations of the state "snatchers" would serve to neutralize the primary competence of the Sardinian Region. With the sole aim of attempting to "by-pass" the constitutional recognition of Sardinia's primary competence in the field of "mines and quarries", the ministerial offices declared that that provision would have the character of "economic and social reform of the State" . A passage that would subject the entire article three, that of the primary competences of the Region, to a "universal" primacy of the State over Sardinia.

Pseudo “Reform”

Even the most statist of statists would have difficulty, however, in attributing to that decree, as soon as it became law, such a value as to have it pompously defined as "Economic and social reform of the State". A sort of risky coup to wrest from the Region the legislative, administrative and economic power over the governance of the mines, the subsoil and what still remains in the deep earth veins, up to those heaps of "polluting" mine waste abandoned by the State itself, in this case Eni, leaving pollution and environmental devastation on the territory. Until yesterday, Rome didn't give a damn about that abandoned mine and those workers fired on the spot, with miserable negligence and cowardly responsibility. Now that the chemical-physical reports tell of a Sardinia still full of "rare and critical materials", from north to south, inside the tunnels and in those cyclopean dams of mud loaded with metals of all kinds, with "stellar" lead levels and zinc up to the most sought after materials for green business, the State remembered Monteponi, Campo Pisano, San Giovanni Miniera, Buggerru, Montevecchio and Ingurtosu, turning the spotlight back on the Silius mine and on the Buddusò granite processing waste.

The lords of the "rare"

The blitz of the Lords of "rare and critical matters" takes place in one of the last sessions of Parliament with an approval without modifications to the text of the Decree "issued" by the Commissions. There are three cornerstones of Rome's great "snatch" against Sardinia. The first: the management of closed, open and to be reopened mines where "critical and rare" materials are present, including concessions and "royalties", comes under state control. The second: the Ministry of «Made in Italy» will govern all the old Sardinian mines, with particular reference to the "emptying" of those tailings dams "full" of every kind of mineral, from lead to zinc, up to rare earths. The third: the State will have the task of managing the recycling of rare and critical materials, effectively opening the door to the lords of the "Black Mass", the global waste of waste containing "Lithium", and more, to be sent to Portovesme to create one of the most "dark" industrial processes of the green "new deal".

Military premise

The legislative provisions have a "military", orderly and peremptory premise: «Due to the pre-eminent national interest in the supply of strategic critical raw materials» and «considering the need to guarantee on the national territory the achievement of the objectives set by the regulation, the provisions of referred to in this decree establish uniform criteria to ensure the timely and effective implementation of the projects". With this incipit, the paragraph that nails Sardinia leaves no room for doubt: «The provisions of this decree apply in the regions with special statutes and in the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano, compatibly with the provisions of the respective statutes and the related rules of implementation". The fact that "compatibility" is referred to is only a useless "pro-forma" given that in the "decree" the passage of the "State Reform" was imposed, capable, according to Rome, of erasing any autonomist resistance. The Sardinian Region, after the publication of our newspaper's investigation, before the launch of the decree, presented an amendment at the State-Regions Conference with the aim of asserting primary competence over "mines and quarries". Amendment ignored by the Government, so much so that the minutes of the Conference record the Region's contrary opinion on the entire provision. The "snatch", if the Region does not challenge the law before the Constitutional Court, will be completed.

The swag

The estimated three and a half billion euros of lead and zinc contained in the Iglesiente tailings dams will fill the coffers of Rome and not only that, the rare materials of Silius and Buddusò, however, will take off into the deep. In the meantime, the "dangerous" waste from the "Black Mass" will arrive in Sardinia, but no one wants the rest.

© Riproduzione riservata