It had to remain secret, locked in the drawers of Piazza Yenne, in the offices facing Carlo Felice, headquarters of the Cagliari Chamber of Commerce. Locked in the deal dossier most "hot" in recent years: the privatization of Cagliari airport. The confidential letter, the one that the President of the Region Alessandra Todde sent to a select few, however, bursts onto the pages of our newspaper as the "king" proof of the relations between Viale Trento and the most controversial operation between public and private for the management of the Sardinia's number one airport.

Nuances and escape routes

For the record, we are publishing the full text, to grasp nuances, superficial and substantial passages, all intertwined in an evident synthesis: give us an escape route to renounce the pending appeals and give the green light to the "privatization" in favor of of F2i. Of course, they don't say it explicitly, but the crucial passages don't leave much doubt. It is no coincidence that the participation that the Region would have asked for for a green light on the operation is contained in the most humiliating of percentages: 5%. A figure that would not only mark the marginal and insignificant role of the Region, but which would in all respects constitute yet another public gift in favor of the F2i financial fund and the American partners of Black Rock.

“Private” labyrinth

It is for this reason that the letter that "viale Trento" sent to the "Chamber of Commerce of Cagliari", to the "Fondazione di Sardegna" and to "F21 SGR SpA" is, in form and substance, a labyrinth of half-promises and words. An acrobatic attempt to cloak with public significance an operation which maintains in every aspect all the characteristics of the most evident privatisation, among other things proposed without any public evidence, using a "European" formula for airport integration which has nothing to do with what to do with the sale to private individuals of a strategic public asset such as the international airport of Cagliari.

Public climbing

It is the premise of the letter that we are publishing that attempts the impossible "climb" aimed at demonstrating a public interest that cannot be glimpsed in the operation even by relying on a microscope. Todde writes: « With reference to the communication indicated in the subject, in the name and on behalf of the regional Administration, it is represented that it is in the pre-eminent interest of the Presidency of the Regional Council to operate in order to promote, encourage and support every and most appropriate initiative which, in the wake of full legality and transparency, can implement and facilitate the mobility of people and things to and from Sardinia as well as increase the services connected to it ". It is not clear where and how a privatization operation like the one feared, even under a monopoly regime, can encourage and support the mobility of people, a universal right whose respect, in an island region, certainly cannot be delegated to financial funds all aimed at profit as an end in itself. If the feared "public interest" was the premise, the epilogue of the unconditional surrender is entirely in the following paragraph: « From this perspective, therefore, the undersigned Administration manifests the widest willingness to activate the best form of collaboration possible with all the management company of the Sardinian airports as well as with the subjects who participate in the share capital of the same in order to achieve the desired result of making the right to freedom of movement effective which, as is known, has not only a constitutional but also a Euro-unitary basis ". What the "right to freedom of movement" has to do with the privatization of the airport is a concept that remains to be explained, as if the sacrosanct right to mobility of an island region depended on the private management of the airport rather than on a written "territorial continuity", as it is, depending on the affairs of state airlines. The most demanding step is that which concerns the availability for the " best possible collaboration " aimed at " subjects who participate in the social capital of the same ". A statement that seems to conflict with what the Region has widely supported, up to now, in every judicial context, in relation to the mandatory public evidence procedures essential for any transfer of public shares. Choosing to consider F2i and the Americans of Black Rock as exclusive and predetermined interlocutors for the operation is not only an act considered illegitimate by most of the bodies that have expressed their opinion on the management of a public good, but constitutes the endorsement of a totally in contrast with the Region's defense briefs both at the TAR and at the Civil Court. Deeming the private partners of the Olbia and Alghero airports "non-fungible", i.e. irreplaceable, is a clear attempt to bypass the rule of public evidence. And that Viale Trento has decided to turn in favor of privatization with F2i and Black Rock is openly written: « Within the above framework, therefore, the Region considers it fundamental and strategic to start a form of privileged collaboration also and above all with this Chamber of Commerce not only due to its role as majority shareholder of Sogaer SpA, as the management company of the most important airport in Sardinia (given the now imminent achievement of the goal of five million passengers transported), but also due to the fact that articles 4 and 5 of law 29 December 1993, n. 580, attribute to the Region itself the tasks of supervising the correct functioning of the bodies of the Chambers of Commerce, not least the one in question precisely because it operates in direct contact with the social, economic and industrial fabric of the provinces of Cagliari and Oristano ".

The "privileged"

The letter speaks of a " privileged form of collaboration ", adding, however, the more compromising formulation of " also and above all with this Chamber of Commerce ". What reveals the substance of the letter is the passage where the determination to deal in a " privileged " manner is stated above all with the Chamber of Commerce, but " also " with the other private partners. It is true that the Region dialogues in a " privileged " way with the Chamber of Commerce, but with other entities it is a high-risk practice. The public, even more so, a Region, in fact, cannot discuss with private individuals in a " privileged " way, but rather through the rules of transparency and public evidence, as established rules and jurisprudence have long been affirmed for memorable times.

The 5% sop

It is clear, however, that if the Region is content to count 5% in the management of Sardinia's first airport, not only will it have effectively ceded the most important asset of the island's economic development to private individuals, but it will be responsible for having endangered even the institutional dignity of the Sardinian Autonomy. Finally, the at least apparently peremptory step: if you want the withdrawal of the appeals you must give us what we ask for, which obviously is not made explicit in the letter that "was" secret.

Recourses in the trash

The President of the Region writes: « And indeed, in the hope of being able to set aside the denied hypotheses of resorting to procedural or commissioner remedies which in the past have also led to the unexpected effect of extending time indefinitely (contrary to what you hypothesized) , we trust that this Chamber wants to support the Region in sharing a renewed operational path which, with maximum transparency, can find on the one hand favorable appreciation with the interpreters who already work in the airport management companies of the Sardinian airports, but above all the positive opinion of all the public authorities appointed by law to provide the most necessary or even only appropriate opinions of legitimacy and coherence with respect to any economic-industrial initiative to review the current structures ". Multiple opinions, expressed in Rome and Cagliari, which have already ruled: a public airport cannot be privatized with "secret" procedures. Proper public evidence is mandatory.

Mauro Pili

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