The protocol of appeals to the Lazio TAR already has a number: 8998. The date of access to the server of the Administrative Court of the Capital is that of 27 July 2022, three days before the deadline for challenging the "colony decree", the one that the Draghi government published sixty days ago in the Official Gazette. A "manual military" measure, which in fact the Region has commissioned, to throw and drive shovels and panels everywhere in Sardinia, distributing right and left an avalanche of billionaire incentives to produce energy for no less than 15 million users.
Energy coup
An "energy coup" operation, all built in the secret rooms of Roman power, financial and political, strictly arm in arm with the invasive lobbies of the wind and the sun. Draghi, with the Ecological Transition ministers, Roberto Cingolani, for Economic Development, Giancarlo Giorgetti, and Enrico Giovannini, for Infrastructure, has done more. Not only did he sign a decree to "invade" Sardinia, see the plan of the 47 projects discovered by the Sardinian Union investigation, but he put pen to paper the exact opposite of the island principle: the Sardinians, based on that decree, they will have to pay the energy much more expensive than the rest of Italy, precisely because, being an island, they will not have methane and what will arrive with the barges will only be used to power a small part of the regional territory. In that decree it is also written that those who will use it in the area next to the barge will pay it on the basis of a national rate, all the other Sardinians, on the other hand, much more. Not only discrimination against Sardinia, but also between Sardinians.
Sardinia on a leash
On the one hand, energy independence is being planned throughout Italy, while on the island of the Nuraghi, the exact opposite is happening. In this face of the earth, according to the contested decree, no more energy will be produced: in 2025, in fact, the Porto Torres and Portovesme plants will be closed. In Sardinia we will remain attached to a "cable leash", the Tyrrhenian Link, which the Government, with that commissioner measure, wants to create to "enslave" the island even more in terms of energy, connecting it with Sicily and Campania, transferring on the Continent all wind and solar energy. A snatch without appeal. A little too much to suffer the speculative "attention" on wind power and energy and suffer the mandatory "distractions" on rights and equal conditions. An energy discrimination that affects the economy of the island without hurting it, making one of the strategic production factors of any economy fail: energy. An inter-ministerial decree, that of the Draghi government, approved without any involvement of the Region and in contempt of the most elementary rules of "loyal cooperation", sanctioned by the Constitution itself, both invoked and ignored. The Sardinian Region has decided to react. And it does so in the only effective way possible, that of challenging that act of the government. A relevant and weighty decision given that the Regional Advocacy has deployed the advanced points of the regional defense to dismantle that act of the Government piece by piece.
Pats & smiles
The Government, with Minister Cingolani, above all, has systematically tried to give the Region a few pat on the back, redundant smiles, passing off the winks as a close negotiation on the merits of the provision. In reality, in the texts drawn up before the adoption of the final act, the Region not only did not appear in the decision-making phase, but was then eliminated and excluded even in the “pathetic” expression “felt the Region”. The measure was an obvious slap in the face of the autonomist institution, even before the regional government led by Christian Solinas. It is for this reason that the newly created Regional Advocacy, according to the rules of the law, has decided, on a mandate from the President of the Region, to set fire to the powders and challenge the government act without hesitation whatsoever.
Armored file
The dossier filed with the Lazio TAR, the one dedicated to state and government affairs, is still armored, but the subject of the appeal leaves no room for doubt: "Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers of 29.03.2022: identification of the works and the infrastructures necessary for the phase out of the use of coal in Sardinia and the decarbonisation of the industrial sectors of the island ». The Region does not want to waste any more time and hinges the appeal in the "Abbreviated Rite" procedure provided for by the Administrative Procedure Code relating to certain matters.
Shortened procedure
And it is no coincidence that in the judicial process identified by the Regional Advocacy these procedural provisions "apply in judgments concerning disputes relating to activities of strategic importance in the energy sectors" and "to the procedures and provisions of the public administration in relating to electricity generation plants, including those relating to the production of electricity from nuclear sources, regasifiers, import gas pipelines, thermoelectric plants with thermal power exceeding 400 megawatts as well as those relating to transport infrastructures included or to be included in the national transmission network or national gas pipeline network ». This lot also includes issues relating to "gas pipelines, power lines, oil pipelines and the transport networks of thermal fluids, as well as with respect to the acts referring to such infrastructures relating to the strategic environmental assessment, the verification of subjection and the assessment of environmental impact and to all the measures, of state or regional competence, as well as to the acts that define the State-Region agreement ". In practice, the whole subject of the dispute between the State and the Region.
Showdown
In this game there is a hurry to arrive at a showdown on a decisive issue for the future of the island. It is all too evident: without energy and with environmental and landscape devastation there will be no development. For this reason, the judicial process identified provides that "all ordinary procedural terms are halved". The confrontation-clash in the courtrooms is, therefore, only at the beginning, but it marks a significant step in the relationship between the State and the Sardinian Region: challenging a decree of this magnitude means not accepting and suffering the logic of slapping on the back. It translates into a real institutional war from which the institutional dignity of the autonomist institute of Sardinia can re-emerge, gaining respect and attention in the palaces of Rome.
The constitutional "vulnus"
The text of the appeal of the Region is still locked up in the procedural channels pending the constitution of the Government or of the individual ministries, certainly the "vulnus" raised by Viale Trento is administrative but also and perhaps above all constitutional. There are at least three main issues raised by the Regional Advocacy: the lack of loyal collaboration with the State in the definition of the "Energy Sardinia" Decree, the clear violation of the "concurrent" competence between the State and the Region in matters of "Energy" and, finally, the "Landscape Protection", including the "overview", is the exclusive responsibility of the Region. To this is added an even more relevant issue on the constitutional level, cohesion and rebalancing. With the decree just challenged by the Region, the State has in fact decided not only to leave Sardinia behind, but to push it back even further, confirming and increasing economic and social discrimination, starting from the energy tariff treatment, in addition to the obvious and not bridged infrastructure gaps related to energy.
Forgotten the strong Entente
Now the Lazio TAR is called upon to evaluate a field appeal by the Sardinia Region against the decree of the President of the Council of Ministers, knowing full well that these are on the one hand "competing" matters, straddling the competences of the Region and the State, and by the another of primary and exclusive relevance of the Region. It was the Constitutional Court led by Giuliano Amato to repeatedly affirm that, where there is a concurrent matter, the State and the Region must obligatorily "co-plan", or sign a strong and binding Agreement for both parties. In the case of the “Energy decree”, adopted exclusively for Sardinia, the State not only found no agreement, but totally ignored the Region. The second element on which Viale Trento is aiming to repel the wind attack is the energy device of the decree. In fact, Sardinia is systematically discriminated against. In the act of the Government, the Island will not have the right to a national unit price of gas, it will not have an equitable energy distribution throughout the region, it will be used as a "colony of renewables" when one of the key European principles is precisely that of “Energetic proximity”, ie the wind and the sun must be “used and consumed” where they are available.
Sardinian landscape
The theme of the “Landscape” certainly also falls within the constitutional dispute. It was the second and last administrative judicial level, the Council of State, to write it without appeal: "The Autonomous Region of Sardinia, on the basis of its Statute, has primary legislative competence in regulating the landscape-environmental aspects of its territory. differentiating itself from the Regions to which this competence is not attributed, being able, therefore, the aforementioned Region to identify, with greater autonomy than the ordinary Regions, the areas not suitable for the installation of wind farms considering that the timely application of the state guidelines, towards of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, meets the limit of competence inherent to the profiles of landscape protection ».
Mattarella & the invasion
In the appeal of the Region, to the attention of the administrative judges, there will certainly be a reference to a key passage in a sentence signed by Sergio Mattarella, Constitutional judge before becoming Head of State, in which an essential concept emerged: " mass of the plants (wind) can nullify the other values involved, all pertaining to the protection, especially landscape, of the territory ".
The die is cast
The appeal is presented. The TAR can decide to cancel that decree or return the papers to the Constitutional Court with the request for an "incidental" judgment. Not a trivial step: at stake there are competences, evident discrimination and even the lack of loyal cooperation. regional appeal constitutes a first real barrier to the energy-colonial drift of the state in Sardinian land. The die is now cast: the Region has finally decided to defend itself from the wind invasion and energy speculation. The clash promises to be titanic: on the one hand the State with the wind and sun lobbies and on the other the Region deployed in defense of the landscape and the future of the Nuraghi Island.