Mauro Pili

Lawyers call it willing combination. Dots to join, apparently distant measures, authorizations granted on the outskirts of the most remote bureaucracy. Anonymous and silent high-class operations, scattered here and there, which, if united, become business chessboards at sea and on land in Sardinia. The moves are closed to most people, built like pieces of a puzzle that risks turning day after day into a vile ambush on the landscape and future of Sardinia.

Panel discussion

A large European and global round table, set up by the energy lobbies, dotted with small and domestic interests, all aimed at the final plan: energetically colonizing the land of the Nuraghi, making it an immense platform to satisfy the parameters imposed by Europe to be downloaded into nuragic and naturalistic landscapes of the island, allow multinationals to earn generous incentives to be paid through the bills of Sardinians and beyond. In Sardinia for the past three years, with incessant obstinacy and unscrupulousness, all kinds of wind and solar projects have been presented, Amazonian forests of wind turbines as tall as 70-storey skyscrapers to be stuck in the most iconic places on this earth, infinite expanses of ready-made photovoltaic panels to cancel agriculture and pastoralism in exchange for endless handouts and incentives. In the meantime, however, the resistance to the assault has become increasingly incisive, with determined Mayors who have renounced some perks passed off as "compensation" offered in exchange for the landscape and the future.

Rome looms

Now, however, looming signals are arriving from Rome that suggest the risk of a push capable of putting Sardinia against the wall. The first attempt blew up during the last nocturnal session, at four in the morning, of the budget commission of the Senate of the Republic when, on behalf of the majority, the rapporteurs of the South decree proposed an amendment declaring a coup objective State: militarize all energy projects even outside the polygons, transforming a wind farm to be placed in the middle of the Gennargentu or the Marmilla nuragica into military servitude. Blitz canceled due to opposition reaction. A clear warning of the underground plans that march in the undergrowth of the institutions. The last state move was forty-eight hours ago with the launch of the energy decree. A provision that imposes an acceleration on the offshore wind sector. Article nine of the provision examined and approved by the Council of Ministers is explicit: «Measures for the development of a strategic hub for floating wind power at sea». The device is cloaked, as if it were a generous "gift", with a dramatic and surreal interest in the south of Italy. In reality it aims to unload the burden of landscape devastation on the South, preferably on the islands, which they do not want in the Alps and the Apennines, which they disdain in the Tuscan hills, and which they oppose in the Po Valley. Paragraph one is the apotheosis of state "generosity": «In order to support infrastructure investments in the areas of Southern Italy, through the establishment of a strategic pole for floating wind power at sea, within one hundred and eighty days from the date of entry into force of this provision, by decree of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, after consulting the regions concerned, two state-owned maritime areas with the relevant body of water in front within the limit are identified in the South of the country. of territorial waters, to be allocated to shipbuilding". A call that materializes with tons of money for those who aim to build wind farms and floating wind platforms to be placed on the seafront of those settlements. They write it openly : "twenty million euros for the year 2024, 110 million euros for the year 2025 and 170 million euros for the year 2026, for the creation, in the areas identified pursuant to paragraph 1, of infrastructures aimed at ensuring national energy autonomy, through investments in shipbuilding for the production of floating platforms and functional energy infrastructures, the assembly and launching of the platforms themselves and for the installation of wind energy production systems at sea". This is where the combination comes into play. For at least six months, as if a preventive whisper had appeared on the docks of the Sardinian ports, there have been authorisations, concessions and wind operations which risk putting Sardinia in front of a fait accompli, giving the Government a devastating assist for the future of the Island. There are at least two moves under observation, one concerns the port of Arbatax and the other which sees the former Canal Port of Cagliari as the center of gravity, increasingly reduced to a "chop" of interests, which have caused it to lose, piece by piece, the strategic and relevant function in the Mediterranean. We start from the Canal Port of Cagliari. Two days after mid-August, as often happens on the island of the sea, the Port System Authority of Sardinia announced with great fanfare that it had authorized «a new and substantial entrepreneurial activity for the construction and maintenance of industrial plants in the areas of the Area Special Economic Zone and the closed Customs Free Zone of the Canal Port of Cagliari". In reality, in no uncertain terms, the action plan of the new 150 thousand square meter concession, in the heart of the square of what was once the Mediterranean container terminal, has as its declared business precisely that of offshore wind power. A company, Nuova Icom srl, with a partner resident in Venezuela, which claims to have relations with Saipem, the same company that two months ago launched two wind turbine platforms for Scotland from the port of Arbatax. An approval of the project preceded by an at least irregular authorization to occupy the area of the Canal Port issued even before the concession itself. Races in August which triggered a real judicial war between the industrial consortium, the Cacip, which decided to challenge the entire operation at the Sardinia TAR.

Cacip in war

The accusations are detailed. The summary of the Consortium's appeal is in a few key concepts: you gave the authorization to build that industrial center inside the Canal Port without having planning power, distorting the areas assigned by a hierarchically superior master plan, deteriorating and erasing the value of the areas owned by the industrial consortium. A blow for the August operation, given that now the TAR will decide whether those authorizations and concessions are void or not, possibly triggering damage and demolitions. A match that does not hide the latent conflict for the management of that maritime compendium that has long been tempting the wind and energy lobbies, given that in the same areas a gigantic regasification terminal has even been planned to be placed on the outskirts of Cagliari.

Arbatax & weavings

A concession that is intertwined with the Port of Arbatax, if only for the role of Saipem. The company, which has always been a shipbuilding branch of Eni in Ogliastra, recently launched two floating wind platforms destined for Scotland. Saipem, however, at the same time, is in close relations with the Cagliari operation, as emerges from the same documents. It's a question of understanding whether the multinational is "playing" on two ports or whether it will ultimately focus on one of the two. In the meantime, "Green Port Italy" is back in Arbatax, yet another Apulian company, which is bidding to manage the Ogliastra docks. It claims to have contracts galore to manage and transport floating wind farms, including one, unknown, in front of Tortolì. The Partnership Body rejected its arrival due to lack of conditions. The Port Authority, despite having announced the dismissal, reopened the procedure in recent days. The deployment of offshore wind power in Sardinian ports is now just around the corner. With the silence of many. In Rome as in Cagliari the wind blows strong.

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