Thursday's decision by Telecom Italia's board of directors to convert ordinary savings shares into savings shares confirms that the umpteenth battle of what we could define as the twenty years war is taking place around the largest Italian telecommunications company to gain control of it. A war in which Italian capitalism unfortunately shows once again its fragility and its lack of vision.
Of the large telecommunications companies operating in our country, only Telecom is still (or so it seems) under Italian control.
The government has declared that Telecom Italia is a strategic company for the country. Hence my request, made the other day in the Senate, to hear in Parliament the new shareholders and the current management which in yesterday's board of directors was, at least in the person of its President, very active.
Now the Italian institutions, Government and Parliament, must, in my opinion, first of all clarify for themselves what thenational strategic interest that this great company encompasses. Of course, Telecom is among the top companies listed on our stock market, it employs thousands of people, many of whom have high-level professional and technological skills, it operates in the sector that will drive our future and on which the growth of the economy and companies in all sectors. But all this is not enough to define it as strategic in a legally compatible sense with the rules of a European telecommunications market that is completely liberalised. These elements, although very important, are not however valid to legitimize public interference in its shareholding structure or in its operating methods.
From this point of view, the only strategically relevant asset can be the network. Not only the sparkle network (always talked about) reserved for communications between states whose security must obviously be guaranteed from external interference, but also the ordinary network which, precisely to protect the competition that Europe cares about, must guaranteed absolute neutrality between operators and access by all content producers. This last aspect has perhaps been underestimated so far. In fact, the accessibility and neutrality of the network no longer concerns only telecommunications operators but increasingly affects the distribution of content. This is determining the tendency, now evident throughout Europe, to integrate the network and content because it is "over the top" that value is created.
Well, on the eve of the launch of the digital single market and TTIP, controlling the network means controlling the distribution of content. We risk, our businesses risk (and we are already seriously delayed and in great difficulty on this point), of disappearing from the digital market which, in the future, will be the largest commercial network for the sale of products, tourist attraction, access to information and culture.
It is therefore legitimate for the country to understand, now and not in ten years to shed useless crocodile tears, how these strategic interests can be safeguarded. It is therefore necessary to understand well what the intentions of the new shareholders are with regard to the broadband investment, investments that up until now an overly indebted Telecom has only been able to make thanks to public resources (moreover not adequately balanced by network accessibility obligations). It is necessary to understand the new industrial plans to verify, for example, whether the integration of the production chain is not one of the objectives and therefore there is not the risk of an extension of the monopoly area from the network to the contents. Or perhaps, as one could slyly glimpse in the characteristics of the new French partners, if there is not rather the risk of the birth of a new duopoly. The point is, in other words, whether we can still count only on Telecom to defend, in the European context, national interests in the era of the digital global economy.
This is why the public hearings of some protagonists would be useful to do them and do them quickly.
