They wrote it precisely, apertis verbis, in the first instance sentence: the Draghi government decree goes in the direction of the conversion to gas of the current coal plants. They are so convinced of what they say that they come to comment: it makes no sense for the Region to complain given that this choice "responds to the well-known need to reduce the use of fossil fuels in energy production".
Crossfire
More than a sentence of the Lazio Tar is a crossfire, all aimed at dismantling the theses of the Sardinian Region and endorsing, without hesitation, the decree of the Draghi government that unscrupulous commissioner the Island of the sun and the wind. Not only did the judges ignore the functional and obvious correlation between "gas" and "electricity production", in order to eliminate the primary statutory competence of the Region, but they founded the "State theorem" on assumptions devoid of any foundation . It is enough, for example, to find the statement with which they argue that the gas sent to Sardinia, through “water barges”, would have been used to power thermoelectric plants.
Farce conversion
Not new plants but, the Judges write, plants to be "converted" from coal to gas. The reference is to those of Portovesme and Porto Torres, the first of Enel, the second of Ep, a multinational from Prague. The statements of the judges of the first instance on the subject are boundless. To support the government thesis they even go so far as to argue that the employment issue, which the Region had also raised, is out of place: "It is not, indeed, that occupational needs are necessarily recessive with respect to environmental ones, but the decree of the President of the The Council of Ministers is not the sedes materiae in which, at the same time as the decarbonisation of these two plants, a precise response to the employment issue must be immediately provided ".
Workers? Another time
As if to say: this is not the place to talk about workers. The Lazio TAR, however, does not shy away from the topic and adds: "Since the structural difference in terms of manpower of the two plant configurations has long been known, one (coal-fired) equal to hundreds of employees, the other (to LNG) equal to only a few dozen, so it is also the primary task of the Region, in the most suitable locations and in agreement with the State, to find gradual solutions to this problem ». Not only do the judges of Rome discharge the workers of Enel, a state-owned company, to the responsibility of the Region, but they continue, regardless of the reality and the acts, to talk about a reconversion of the plants that does not exist. Not a trivial element, but decisive and decisive on several fronts, the substantial one of that gas transformed into energy would benefit the entire regional and constitutional territory, given that it would be, if the reasoning of the Judges on the competences in question were valid. strictly speaking, of electricity production directly connected to Article 4 of the Sardinian Statute.
Enel denies the judges
It is a pity, however, that the administrative magistrates of Rome did not inquire about the facts, not those fantasized in the State memoirs, but contained in the official documents. If, for example, they had taken note of Enel's formal declarations, published in the procedure for the authorization of the Portovesme regasification plant, they would have realized that the electricity company has categorically ruled out wanting to reconvert that plant. He wrote it so much that he even dismantled the business plan, the so-called cost benefits of that "monster" of the regasification plant placed in the middle of the town of Portovesme, given that the industrial port is practically attached to Portoscuso.
Stop electricity
The statement was peremptory: "Enel Produzione SpA has not presented any projects for the conversion of the Sulcis coal plant into a gas plant, it is believed that the considerations set out in the additions to the" Portovesme Terminal and related works "project by the SNAM company Rete Gas SpA with regard to the synergies that can be implemented with the operation of the Enel plant in Sulcis are not consistent or with the end of life of the same - envisaged by the AIA Decree at 31/12/2025 ».
Unfounded assumptions
This would be enough for the appellate judges to understand how much the sentence of the Lazio TAR moves from unfounded assumptions. That's not all, though. To endorse the colonial state thesis, in order to cut the Region out of any possible intervention on the merits of the decree, the Lazio TAR judges even use the sea as a club to raze every possible voice in Viale Trento to the ground.
The weapon of the sea
They write it with the empire of inviolable dogma: «As regards the determinations on hydrocarbons at sea, the prior agreement between the State and the Regions is in no way required. By virtue of this provision, the State has exclusive jurisdiction over the use of the sea, territorial sea areas and public maritime property for the purpose of supplying energy sources. No consultation between the State and the Regions is required ». According to this thesis, therefore, for judges there is no issue of institutional consultation. The State, therefore, could easily decide to place a nuclear power plant in the port of Cagliari or decide to build a radioactive waste deposit in the state-owned areas of the canal port. The Sardinians and the Region, according to the reading from the old Roman empire that propose the togates of the Lazio Tar, would have no say in the matter. It is a pity that they forget the environmental impact, they ignore, for example, the fact that in Portovesme, as in the surrounding Sulcis, there is a mortality higher than 50% of the regional average for respiratory diseases. It is a pity that they ignore, for example, the competence on the landscape, until proven otherwise, of an exclusive matter of the Region, or the infrastructures on the ground. If the reasoning on competences in the strict sense proposed by the Lazio TAR judges were plausible, Snam gas from the sea would have to throw it in the air, given that the infrastructures, on land, would be the "terrestrial" competence and therefore of the Municipality and the Region, competences not commissariats because they fall within a strict competence on the "government of the territory" constitutionally assigned to the Region.
From victim to executioner
There is worse, however, in the Lazio TAR ruling. The administrative judges, in doing their utmost to exalt the "altruistic" qualities of the government of Rome, even go so far as to accuse Sardinia of "selfishness" that would even undermine the unity of the Republic. In practice, they try, without ever succeeding, to transform Sardinia from a victim of state policies to an executioner of national unity. It would seem surreal even to think so but it is written in the judgment of the Court of Rome: "The State, especially in the case of necessary equalization between the various (and different) territories of the Republic, is thus called upon to assume, thanks to forms of greater flexibility in the distribution between the legislative powers pursuant to Article 117 of the Constitution, an equalization responsibility that overcomes any regional selfishness and misunderstandings on the practical value of the unity and indivisibility of the Republic ». We would have to ask what "equalization" the judges are talking about, given that Sardinia is the only region of Italy and Europe that has a delay of at least 50 years on methane energy supplies. What would selfishness be according to the robes of Rome? For example, that of having provided in a state decree that Snam will bring the LNG to the port and then the Sardinians get by, with the cost-benefit clause?
Paringianu & Cagliari
Yet another slap in the face of Sardinia, after the one inflicted by the Draghi government, the judges settle it when they argue, without knowing anything about the island, that the decree of Palazzo Chigi "does not seem to preclude a priori the possibility of supplying the distribution networks not yet connected to the planned sections of the network with alternative solutions (cylinder wagons ed) ». Basically they are convinced that Cagliari is attached to Paringianu, a hamlet of Portoscuso, given that the connection ridge between Sulcis and the capital of the island is challenged by a cost-benefit assessment.
For Sardinians, cost-benefit
A "meritorious" choice, according to the Judges, that made by the Mite, the dead and buried ministry that belonged to Cingolani, "who intended to follow efficiency criteria for the definition of the optimal solution, based on a cost analysis. benefits ". Other than equalization, the judges, violating the constitutional rule of island rebalancing, endorsed the cancellation of the principle of equity and cohesion. Throughout Italy, energy infrastructures in every small village, right down to the last citizen. The same price for everyone. In Sardinia No , according to the former government and the Tar Judges, Sardinians should pay for 50 years of delays and, after having paid for the pipelines of the Continent, bear the costs of the mini-backbones and tank wagons themselves. In the face of the "selfishness" enunciated by the judges of Rome.