In the past week there has been a series of decisions relating to public policies on services for citizens which to define as disastrous is a polite understatement. They have been taken on by various decision-makers (Parliament, local authorities, Tar) and in the context of very different legislative and regulatory systems (public transport, energy, waste) but they lend themselves to a common reading and interpretation: the "combined ” of blocking power of established interests and maximum conservation of the existing structures in this political phase is able to block any reform that promotes efficiency and competition, with all due respect to consumers.
Let's quickly go through this gallery of horrors. In Parliament we have to vote on the famous annual law (but of two years ago) on competition which contained the end of the standard offer (the retail market segment where there is a price administered by the Energy Authority). The government has decided to postpone this deadline for a year, from July 2018 to July 2019 (and it is the second postponement).
Motivation: fear of an increase in prices for consumers, a sign of distrust in the ability to carry out real and effective monitoring of the market: as if there were the idea that when the market exists, it cannot be controlled. An obvious admission of weakness. And it is not clear why more than a year would not be enough (between now and July 2019) to implement "all the precautions" as Calenda defined them. In reality, the MDP took the positions of the M5S (opposite) and there was some risk in the courtroom. We will talk about it after the elections.
But Parliament seems to have worried less about consumers, at least for now, on the matter of waste where it was a question of recovering the rule included in the delegation on Local Public Services, a delegation torpedoed, it will be recalled, by the decision of the Constitutional Court. That provision entrusted the Energy Authority with tariff control and regulation of this extremely delicate sector, where we are far behind in terms of industry in many areas of the country.
And where there are huge differences in the quality of the service and in the price paid by consumers (even 2 and a half times between the city where one pays the most and the one where one pays the least). Precisely in the days of parliamentary inertia on this front, the waste situation in Rome is deteriorating and the Municipality imagines no other solution than to resort to orders against a company banned under anti-mafia legislation to operate two treatment plants.
There is no trace of an industrial plan that enhances integration efficiencies (collection and management), but in the meantime the Romans are paying for a service that is disastrous. Here it is clear that a national regulator could push towards solutions of greater protection for citizens and greater efficiency, but Parliament hesitates and has not yet approved the law.
If Rome cries Milan doesn't laugh (albeit in another service). The Milanese municipality had already opted for the tender with a single lot for public transport. The unions, after a very successful strike in conjunction with the furniture fair (a real karate blow to the image of the city), have obtained the result that even the division between contracts for the actual transport service and the so-called ancillary chapters, such as parking or bike sharing, where some new operators could have entered, there is nothing to do. Therefore, when the tender takes place, the Municipality of Milan will only be able to grant the entire concession to ATM, exactly as it does today.
Still on the subject of transport, the decision of the Rome TAR that Uber competes unfairly with taxis is just in recent days: it is not an assessment of efficiency, the judge duly pointed out, but of compliance with current legislation. The government, after the robust demonstration in Rome a few weeks ago, had promised a reform of the sector. For now it is not visible. Here too we hope that it won't go until after the elections, given the power of the taxi driver category as a pool of votes and as a propagator of judgments on the work of politicians.
From the transport of people to that of gas. Again the TAR of Rome: the authorization for the famous explantation of olive trees for the Tap gas pipeline has been suspended (which once in operation will have the non-trivial merit of making us a little less dependent on Russian gas; i.e. no Tap, yes Putin ), pending the discussion of the precautionary application in the Council Chamber set for 19 April. So it could be an arrest of about ten days: we'll see.
But the motivation is interesting: the Regional Administrative Court considered that - since the explantation operations have already started - the requested precautionary measure can be granted, "in consideration of the technical times necessary for the procedural phases still to be carried out (...), for the satisfaction of the multiple public interests involved. Yeah, when there are multiple interests involved the best thing to do is do nothing. Even the judges say so.
