Are privatizations good or bad? It depends on how the Government does them, but it is up to the opposition to raise the level of the challenge

Italy for sale? Goodbye to family jewels to raise cash? The controversies that are raging these days the privatizations of the Government are a bit surreal. From what is known the Government he does not seem inclined to cede public control of any strategic asset, but only to sell minority shares of public companies which will in any case remain under his control even if he holds a smaller shareholding. What are these operations for? Simply to raise cash to balance the public budget. Can it be done without it? In theory yes, but the alternative would be a remedy worse than the disease because it would lead to an increase in the deficit and public debt or a cut in public spending or an increase in taxes. Whether the Government will really be able to achieve the objective of collecting 20 billion in 3 years from privatizations remains doubtful but talking about selling off jewels, as the general secretary of the Cisl, Luigi Sbarra in view of the 29,7% IPO Poste Italiane, control of which will remain firmly in public hands through its presence in the capital of CDP, frankly appears excessive and totally unfounded.

Privatizations: the real challenge is on the general strategy and their intertwining with liberalizations

The problem is not the sale of shares in public companies that do not call into question control, except for what may happen for the Monte dei Paschi of Siena where the EU has long been asking the Mef to exit the Sienese bank once the recovery is complete, but the general strategy and the industrial design in which privatizations take place. It would be the case that, instead of navigating by sight, the Government clarified which public companies it considers strategic (but why strategic?), and of which it is therefore advisable to sell only minority shares, and which instead are considered less significant as the ECB would say and therefore also totally salable. But it would also be the case that, in addition to the updated classification of public companies into strategic and non-strategic, the Government carried out two other essential operations. The first is the definition of an industrial plan in which to include privatizations, clarifying whether the partial or total sale of shareholdings is solely aimed at raising cash or also has the objective of contributing, through the search for alliances and new partners, to the construction Of national or European champions in the sectors in which the privatized companies operate.

Let's not forget the case of the highways

The second operation that is expected from the Government but of which we see no trace is the intertwining of privatizations and liberalizations in order to avoid a transition from a public monopoly to an even more uncontrollable private monopoly, as happened with the privatization of Highways which, in the absence of serious and transparent regulation and liberalization, was followed by an intolerable increase in tolls and tariffs. It is on these, much more decisive, grounds that the Government must be pressed, without raising surreal preventive barriers on the sale of minority shareholdings. The true heart of the privatization challenge is this and it is up to the political and trade union opposition, if it is capable, to pressure the Government by raising the level of confrontation rather than getting lost in rearguard battles of dubious relevance.