The public confrontation on the privatization and liberalization of the Italian railways takes off. There are two crucial points: how and what to privatize and how to combine privatization with liberalization and with the eventual unbundling of the grid from the FS on the model of Snam and Terna.
In the last few hours, a pronouncement destined to weigh heavily is that of the president of Aiscat, Fabrizio Palenzona, who is also president of the Aeroporti di Roma, as well as a leading exponent of the banking and financial world. Palenzona explicitly asked that the network be separated from the Fs to open up the market more and advocated "a single direction for the entire transport sector".
Elia, the new CEO of Fs, tried to slow down by saying that all options are open on the privatization of the Fs but recalling that, in his opinion, the unbundling of the network could be taken into consideration not now but when there will be a sufficient number of competing firms. But we are faced with the chicken and the egg issue: the spin-off comes first
of the network to increase competition and open the market to more railway companies or do we have to wait for these to arise by their own virtue even if the market is not completely open and the FS exercise a hegemonic role?
A decisive word in this regard will be up to the new president of the Fs, Marcello Messori, to whom the Treasury has entrusted strong powers precisely over the privatization and regulation of the public group of railways.
