Waste and planti: you change. For a few days now, the law authorizing the government to exercise substitutive powers for the construction of disposal plants has been in force. To speed up the authorization procedures for the works envisaged by the PNRR, but also by the PNGR (National Program for Waste Management) the government can appoint commissioners to start the works. It is known that Italy has already paid 620 million fines to Europe for not having adapted the disposal system to European rules. With the Decree Law 144, it was established that the plants and planned infrastructures are works of public utility. In addition, indifferent and urgent. If whoever has to build the infrastructure does not apply for authorization according to the times already established by law, the government assigns a tterm of maximum 15 days to proceed. If nothing happens, a Commissioner arrives who will take care of everything. It is a strong and necessary decision taken by the government of Mario Draghi before making room for the new executive. Which, according to a study by the Laboratory Ref Searches , will have to intervene again on the matter to clarify some points.
The plants will be managed by government-appointed Commissioners
The Decree stems from “a need for matured awareness of length of the authorization procedures that grip and often block the works” write the researchers. On the other hand, it is time for Italy to have certain times for the construction of new plants that are rightly part of the green transition. Overcoming any type of inertia to avoid "that the most impressive public policy in support of infrastructures of the last 30 years – the PNRR, precisely – ends up in a stalemate for the waste sector". The study explores the areas of application of the standard and refers to infrastructures, not of state competence, to satisfy the plant requirements identified by the PNGR and the PNRR. But it happens that the PNGR does not contain a precise listing of the new infrastructures, but only a survey of the existing systems and it does not identify the new plants to be built on a regional basis Conflicts of competence and operations can thus arise in the territories. It is therefore necessary to "clarify the perimeter of the works to which the exercise of substitutive powers is directed". Even more explicitly stated, Do the substitutive powers with the commissioner apply only to works that will benefit from the support of the PNRR? Or does the appointment of a commissioner apply to all the infrastructures envisaged by regional planning?
The new waste treatment plants, a test for the aftermath of Draghi
The national reality and the accumulated delays on incinerators or other plants should lead to the appointment of commissioners everywhere. Also to show the EU a serious change of pace. ” To progress without further delays “once it is known the list of works financed with the PNRR, it will be necessary to quantify the regional needs that these plants will satisfy” advises the study. It is at this point that the discussion with the clarifications will have to be taken up again by the next government. Making sure that delays are removed everywhere and the right path is taken to close an Italian anomaly once and for all. In the electoral program of Giorgia Meloni the substitutive power of "State and Regions in case of delays in spending European funds" exists. It remains to be seen, however, if and how this declaration will connect specifically with the construction of waste-to-energy plants or other plants. The position of the Brothers of Italy, if he really has the leadership of the government, does not reveal much confidence. In the May elections for the municipality of Rome, the party led a battle against the €800 million infrastructure proposed by Roberto Gualtieri saying he was "not in favor of the burner policy". But things change. Compared to Draghi's Decree, the success of the September 25 elections and the need not to block the PNRR, if Fdi is in charge of Palazzo Chigi, it will be able to easily take sides with the most innovative part of the system and save the country hundreds of millions of euros in fines.
