It takes a lot of courage. On the one hand, the State, the Draghi Government in this case, challenges the "House Plan of Sardinia" accusing the Region of not having discussed and "agreed" it with the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, on the other, the Government itself is about to approve , without any real involvement of the Region, an "Energy Decree" which, without a blow, devastates the landscapes and agricultural areas of the island.
Two weights and two measures
In the appeal of Palazzo Chigi to the Constitutional Court, Draghi and Ministers accuse the Sardinian Region of not having "co-planned" in the House Plan, for example, the areas where caravans and campers can be parked, or the urban planning rules to safeguard the Sartiglia stables of Oristano. At the same time, however, the same government is preparing to "bomb" the ridges of Sardinia with gigantic wind turbines, ignoring, or rather humiliating, the autonomist powers of the Special Statute Region. The text of the decree, which has been standing still for twenty days in Palazzo Chigi for the final signature of the Prime Minister, awaits a go-ahead which Draghi's offices continue to deny.
The impetuous physicist
The impetuousness of the Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani, caught in the grip of the strong powers and the large wind energy lobbies, collides with a passage that the legislative offices of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers cannot ignore: Sardinia is a Region of Special Statute. The physicist who leads the Ministry of energy retaliation of the hierarchy of sources, of statutory and constitutional competences, does not want to hear about it. Tinsels, for those who already imagine excavators and cranes intent on placing wind turbines on the peaks of Punta Gomoretta in Bitti or among the nuraghi of Villanovaforru. Let alone if, lobbies and strong powers, can waste time behind "competing or exclusive competences".
Constitution disappeared
In the text of the decree sent under the table to Ministries and the Sardinian Region, for example, the term "Constitution" is never mentioned. Moreover, an act such as a decree, which in fact a Region commissioner, moreover a Special Statute, should be based precisely on the Charter of laws, the normative corpus of the State. And, instead, never mentioned. Ignored, in all respects, even the constitutional "Specialty" of Sardinia. Never referred to, nor in the premises nor in the body of the decree. In those 4,920 words of unilateral and authoritarian decree, the word “Understanding” is never mentioned, never. Yet in order to park the campers, the government had even asked for constitutional "co-planning". As if to say: the Region is "underage" and cannot even decide where to park a "caravan", let alone if it can deal with a "military" invasion of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels.
Cingolani & company
Expropriated and commissioned far and wide, on land and at sea. The decree we are talking about, the one that should, according to the wishes of Cingolani & company, invade Sardinia with wind turbines and endless expanses of photovoltaic panels and make the island depend on barges and tank wagons, was provided for by a state law , ordinary law, mind you. In the device of the decree-law, n. 77, entitled "Governance of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and first measures to strengthen administrative structures and to speed up and streamline procedures", it is expected that within 30 days of entry into force, therefore on May 31, the President of the Council of Ministers issues the implementing decree. The calendar of Rome is already almost seven months late, not a few if you think of the dogma of efficiency-urgency heralded by the Ecological Transition team. The week after the Immaculate Conception could be the right one to attempt the blitz. It all depends on what the Sardinian Region will do. If it surrenders its exclusive and competing powers to the Government without a shot being fired, the game will be won by wind lobbies and strong powers, if, on the other hand, Viale Trento were to assert its constitutional and statutory prerogatives, that decree will remain a dead letter, to re-discuss all over again the energetic structure of the island. After all, the proposed Decree has aroused quite a few perplexities in the Palazzo Chigi staff itself and it is no secret that the heads of the competent department have pointed out, even publicly, that Sardinia is not a Region like any other.
Exclusive competence
And, in fact, the game is all linked to some key elements that the decree has totally ignored. The first: the Region of Sardinia, on the basis of the Statute and the implementing rules, n.480, of 22 May 1975, has exclusive jurisdiction over the "Government of the Territory" and the "Protection of the Landscape". What's more, the rule, which has a constitutional rank, therefore hierarchically superior to any ordinary rule of the State, has provided for the transfer to the Autonomous Region of Sardinia of the powers already exercised by the central and peripheral bodies of the Ministry of Public Education and attributed to the Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage. In practice, the State has transferred, not delegated, (the difference is substantial) to the Region exclusive competences on landscape and environment, the same that the Government would now like to bring back under the power of Palazzo Chigi with an implementation decree provided for by a "modest "Ordinary law. The government can dispose of the competences of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage for all the other Regions that have not had the transfer of those competences, but it certainly cannot do it for the Region of Sardinia. It is evident that this aspect constitutes the first significant vulnus on the "constitutional" legitimacy of the decree signed by Draghi.
Trampled landscape
If only the text elaborated by Cingolani intervenes in a devastating way precisely on the theme of the landscape, having planned to place the length and breadth of Sardinia the beauty of 2,600 megawatts of wind turbines and 2,200 megawatts of photovoltaic panels. A landscape impact prevalent on any other energy issue, given that the Constitutional Court itself has been much more than explicit on this issue.
Mattarella and the impact
The current Head of State, Sergio Mattarella, Constitutional Judge in 2014, expressing the position of the Council on the issue, explicitly put pen to paper an essential concept: "to avoid that a massive installation of (wind) plants can frustrate the other values involved, all pertaining to the protection, especially landscape, of the territory ". It is all too evident that having already "imposed", with the decree that the government is about to launch, the number of wind turbines to be placed in Sardinia, will generate an unprecedented constitutional vulnus. It is that «massive impact», to recall Mattarella, that nullifies the other values of constitutional rank, such as the environment and landscape, whose competence is exclusive to the Region. That provision of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels over the mountain landscapes of Barbagia or the plains of Campidano is clearly a constitutional violation.
Dominus, don't step
Landscape is a theme, and therefore wind power and photovoltaics, which cannot be negotiated. The Region on the Landscape and its Protection, on the basis of the transfer of competences with the Implementing Rules of 1975, a law of constitutional rank, is the dominus, not the stool of the State. There is, then, the second major vulnerability, that relating to the “concurrent” competence which assigns legislative power to the Region of Sardinia in the matter of “production and distribution of electricity”. According to Cingolani, and not only that, that "power" could be overcome by slapping on the back. And that the Minister was not very clear about the issue can be seen from the incipit of the text of the decree which states: "Considering that, following the transmission of the decree, no observations were received from the other departments concerned, nor from the Sardinia region, with which coordination meetings were held during which the outline of this provision was discussed ". In practice, the game of "concurrent" competence was exchanged as a ritual to be consumed with a few video calls.
Understanding, not pats
It was also in this the Constitutional Court to clarify the method: without a strong agreement the State cannot prevail, unless there is the need to fill a gap for the citizens of the Region. In reality, the decree proposed by the government does everything but fill an energy gap. Indeed, it is enough to look at the figures proposed to replace the coal-fired power plants of Fiumesanto and Portovesme. Currently the two plants have a power of 1,200 megawatts, the government decree provides, based on Terna's indications, to halve that quantity bringing it to 550 megawatts.
Gap increases
In practice, not only is the energy gap which had to provide for an additional electrical safety threshold also not bridged to compensate for the black-out risks of an island region, but the energy gap is heavily widened. Added to this is that while throughout Italy the national networks provide for gas to arrive at home, in bathrooms and kitchens, in home heating and to companies, in Sardinia, according to the Cingolani decree, the LNG, of which they are ignored still the costs, will arrive, perhaps, with barges, which will unload it on improbable floating ships in Porto Torres and Portovesme. Some gas will arrive, at a cost higher than that of any other Italian or European region, in the metropolitan cities of Cagliari and Sassari.
Tank wagons
For the rest of the island only tank wagons along the "efficient" and "safe" roads of Sardinia. The only lifeline is once again that old, but still current, Special Statute of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia. The last bulwark to keep the island from being overwhelmed by the greed of the state. A "healthy" and fair negotiation to obtain the malpractice has only one way: recourse to the Constitutional Court. The energy match is no longer the stuff of pats on the back.
(3.continue)
