The doubts seem to be almost always the same. Many of the skills of the society Ports of Italy Spa, whose institution is previewed from the bill C. 2925 of "Reorder of the law 28 January 1994, n. 84, in matter of harbour governance and relaunch of the investments in strategic infrastructures of marine transport of general interest", will not overlap us to those of the Authorities of Harbour System? Moreover, would the economic resources destined to the Ports of Italy not be subtracted to the AdSP? They are unknown, or such seem to be to the large part of the subjects so far audits in relation to the Commission Transports, post and telecommunications of the Chamber of Deputies, that also the association of the harbour terminalisti Assiterminal asks that they are appianate.

"We are - it has specified today the director of Assiterminal, Alessandro Ferrari, to the members of the parliamentary commission - absolutely in line with the objective of the government to outline a more coordinated governance at national level, guarantee uniform procedures throughout the country, pushing for strategic investments, as repeatedly reiterated by Vice Minister Rixi, as we want to positively grasp some recent recent developments regarding the strengthening of central coordination, without depriving the individual steps of their territorial autonomy, We perceive the need - it has found Ferrari - to homologate the services, the procedures and the interpretation of the norms, leaving the management of some functions in the local field, as well as the will to aim to create an efficient and competitive harbour system at global level, as well as allow Italy to invest and operate also abroad through the creation of a new public society, the Porti d'Italia Spa".

In the memory presented, Assiterminal has found that the normative picture of law 84/1994 today appears inadequate regarding a deeply changed context, with increasingly larger ships, increasing concentration between shipowners and terminalisti, integration between port logistics and productive chains, energy and digital transition, and an increasingly competitive pressure from the ports of the southern Mediterranean. In particular, the association identifies four critical nodes of the current system: an administrative fragmentation that generates uneven rules between the different Authorities of Harbour System; a deficit of technical skills in the management of increasingly complex dossiers, from economic regulation to the calculation of the Regulatory Asset Base; a fragmentation of investments linked to the episodic logic of the appropriations, starting from the PNRR; and finally a normative uncertainty due to the overlap of competences between Ministry of Infrastructures and the Transports, Ministry of Economy, Authority of Regulation of the Transports and Authority of Harbour System.

"The current regulatory system - the director of Assiterminal has continued - has not remained static in the last 30 years, despite that in several parts has never actually seen a complete application, starting from the non-effective operation of the Coordination Conference and the lacking involvement of associations, comparatively more representative of the sector, in building a vision, planning and planning of so-called strategic investments. The proposed plant does not enter into the merits of the simplification and uniformity of the operation of the system, focusing on the theme of investments and here - it has observed Ferrari - there are some questions: Can the Ports of Italy plan, design, perform jobs and give concessions under one legal capacity? The mechanism of the dual concession that is proposed does not make the procedures too complex, and are we sure that this model is compatible with European standards? Where it was, what economic resources would it require without going to the market, with consequent profiles of competitiveness not easy to manage? ».

The heart of Assiterminal's observations concerns the legal and economic nature of the Ports of Italy. In the government proposal the company is qualified as a person in charge of Services of General Interest (SIEG), but at the same time carries out a real economic activity: According to Assiterminal's paper position, these two functions should instead remain distinct and separate, while the bill overlaps them. For Assiterminal, a particularly serious criticality concerns the article 5-sexies, that in the mixed concessions of works and services would attribute to the Porti d'Italia the double role of concessionaire of the State for the realization of the works and, at the same time, of concession towards the harbour concessionaire that will use those same infrastructures. A duality that, according to Assiterminal, generates a conflict of structural and insanable interests, in contrast to the European principle of separation between the concessionaire and concessionaire enshrined in Directive 2014/23/EU.

The financing of the Ports of Italy also raises the doubts of Assiterminal: the fund previewed from the article 27-bis would be fed by anchorage taxes, harbour taxes on the goods and the granting fees coming from all the ports, with the concrete risk of a cross financing, in which the works realized in a port of call are paid with resources generated in a competitor port. This, according to the association, risks compromising competition between ports protected by Community law.

To answer some of these questions Assiterminal has hypothesized an emendative path through which the association believes that the instrument of the Ports of Italy could be made functional to the design of the government: "it could be hypothesized in the meantime - Ferrari has explained - that for extraordinary maintenance the Spa is dedicated to the dredgings and the maintenance of the works that will go to realize, considering that the regulation on the concessions of 2022 previews already that the extraordinary maintenance is at the expense of the dealer. It is necessary that they be guaranteed safeguards for those terminals that have already concessions in existence or assumed investment commitments also on the basis of existing administrative iter. The Ports of Italy, once realized the work should retrocede it to the Authorities of Harbour System". "Better still - it has specified Ferrari - if he realizes only cold works or, to the most part, integrating, interacting with the MEF, additional resources in the case of private public partnerships for those works inserted in the Strategic Plan that the AdSP and the interested operator can not finance entirely. In this way, the functions of the concessionary - dealer, i.e. between the exercise of administrative activities and the conduct of economic activities, would be separated".

Among the other memories presented, the Agency of Customs and Monopolies, not audited in Commission, has proposed to strengthen the institutional connection with the Authorities of Harbour System, for example through the participation of the territorial director of the Agency to the works of the Management Committee of the AdSP, with similar modalities to those previewed for the marine director.

In its memory Confcommercio, also not audita, while sharing the need to strengthen the national strategic coherence of the harbour system, has raised criticalities relevant on the instruments chosen to realize it. For the confederation, the main node concerns the direct entrustment to Porti d'Italia, for 99 years, of services of general interest linked to strategic infrastructure, accompanied by the possibility for the same company to operate also on the market in design and engineering activities. According to Confcommercio, this dual nature would be incompatible with the European and national requirements for "in-house" entrustments, which require the so-called "analogue control" and the absence of commercial vocation of the entrusting party, principles recalled both by Directive 2014/23/EU and by the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the EU. For Confcommercio, the extension of the activity of the Ports of Italy to the market, in Italy and abroad, would therefore risk creating a distortion of competition to the detriment of the enterprises of the sector. The association has therefore proposed to circumscribe the role of the company to the sole activity in concession, qualifying it as the sole contracting center of the AdSP.

Confcommercio also recalled the theme of the competing competence between State and Regions in the matter of ports and transport, recalling the decision of the Constitutional Court n. 303/2003, and asked that the new National Plan of interventions for strategic infrastructures is adopted after strong agreement with the Regions concerned. On the governance front, the association has proposed to recover a greater involvement of the representations of the enterprises in the management committees of the AdSP, resized from the reform of 2016, and has raised doubts about the organizational dimension of the Ports of Italy, estimated between the 300 and the 400 staff units, asking that any new charges do not result in an increase of the taxes burden of the operators and the goods.