The new reform law on the organization of ports, which has passed the hurdle of the State Accounting Office and will most likely be brought to the Council of Ministers before Christmas, continues to raise doubts, perplexities, and questions.
The reform, which introduces Porti d’Italia spa – a sort of super Authority under private law, but with entirely public capital, conceived to coordinate investments, strategic works, and relations between the State and the 16 Italian Port System Authorities – will follow a long and probably troubled path, having chosen the legislative instrument of a bill for its implementation.
“Today, the reform is a necessity for the country,” the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Edoardo Rixi, stated in recent days at the Blue Economy Forum of Il Secolo XIX in Livorno. But is that really the case? We discuss it in this double interview with maritime lawyer Davide Maresca and with Prof. Gian Enzo Duci.
Davide, after starting with the intention of borrowing the Puertos del Estado model from Spain, in which the Port Authorities retain full financial autonomy, we have landed, with Porti d’Italia, on a completely different idea. What is the logic of this path?
One thing is the coordination of administrative competences and the need for a direction in the exercise of these competences, which pertain to public law aspects (such as planning and political guidance activities). Another, whether right or wrong, is to say that the State can enter the market of port infrastructure, through an investment company that builds and maintains that infrastructure and which, in a word, acts as an entrepreneur. If, in the first case, the reform responds to the need, felt by the entire port cluster, for national coordination and a unification of administrative practices among the various AdSPs (hence the reference to the Puertos del Estado model), in the second, the objective becomes entrepreneurial through a public industrial policy. This is the fundamental difference.
Gian Enzo, the idea of allowing the State to act as an entrepreneur is not new. In the past, the former president of the AdSP of Trieste, Zeno D’Agostino, had repeatedly advocated for the possibility that for the most important concessions, those with international value, the AdSPs be allowed to acquire a minority stake in the ownership of the terminal. How are these two things reconciled: the need for coordination and investment?
It is appropriate to make a premise. Was there a need for a reform law? I think so. The 2016 one failed to provide the impetus for central direction on infrastructural investment choices. From this point of view, Porti d’Italia has its own reason for existing, which is to equip the Italian port system with a strong entity, capable of confronting major international players and imposing its strategic choices on the Port System Authorities, choices that are by their nature multi-port.
However, it should be clarified that the national port and logistics cluster has long been asking for greater public presence with transport-related expertise and an awareness of the response times required by the sector’s needs, not the introduction of an instrument that merely centralizes the execution of works.
Well, I believe that in some ways this reform is a bit of a two-faced Janus: on one hand, it embraces D’Agostino’s cause, allowing Porti d’Italia spa to operate abroad, on the other hand, it disavows its spirit when it arrogates to itself functions that are the competence of the Port System Authorities. It is true that some of them perform their duties with difficulty and at a biblical pace: Porti d’Italia must be the instrument to allow them to accelerate, not to strip them of their powers.
In a critical contribution, the former Secretary General of the Port System Authority of Livorno, Massimo Provinciali, highlighted how the centralization of the implementation phase has the flavor of a rap on the knuckles for the AdSPs, which have evidently been far too slow in the work of modernizing assets. Davide, what is your opinion on this matter?
That there is a slowness in the execution of works is evident. However, this is a weakness that affects not only the port sector but the entire Italian public administration. From this point of view, one cannot help but observe that the one sketched out in the text circulated in recent weeks is a sectoral reform to address a more general problem. It may therefore be that it was this sensitivity that gave the initial impetus to the need for a port reform, which nevertheless bases its foundations on another premise, which is to give full uniformity to the strategic choices pertaining to the works to be carried out. From this point of view, the emphasis placed by the reform on the investment capacity of the new Porti d’Italia could have the consequence of leading to an excessive financialization of these choices, detaching them from industrial policy. In short, having the economic-financial aspect as the main driver of public policy choices risks pushing industrial planning into the background, a vision that has in fact already emerged from the MIT guidelines on the methods for issuing concessions.
Gian Enzo, is Maresca right when he fears the risk that with this Porti d’Italia there is a risk of excessive financialization of choices?
The risk we run is that the entity that has always exercised its competences of direction, supervision and control over ports, namely the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, sees its role weakened. One only needs to look at the hypothesized composition of the Board of Directors of Porti d’Italia Spa to see this: of the five members who should be part of it, two are indicated by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, two by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and one is appointed by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. It is evident how the MIT is in the minority. Furthermore, some aspects on which it would be essential to intervene remain untouched. I would have expected a clarifying intervention on the concession regulation: the systematization and uniformization at the national level of rules and practices which, to date, even after the recent interventions by MIT and ART, continue to be different not only between the various Port System Authorities but also within the same authorities when they affect multiple port basins.
In a word, we are still a long way from the idea of a single national port system.
I finally expect that the new port law will finally take note of the new global reality, characterized by the increasingly significant presence of large international operators, who are progressively monopolizing the role of concessionaires, having now almost everywhere replaced local operators. The reduction of jobs on the docks due to automation processes and the increasingly marginal presence of local entrepreneurs is stripping the territory on which the ports are located of important resources. It would be desirable, also in the interest of the concessionaires, that during the reform, new ways begin to be studied to allow ports to generate a return for the cities that host them, so that these cities do not prove hostile to the ports themselves.
Davide, another topic to address is the one concerning the relationship between the different planning instruments of the Port System Authorities and the national implementation instruments, such as the new program agreement between the Ministry of Infrastructure and Ports of Italy spa…
The problem you touched upon concerns the principle of separation between public administration and business activity. In the draft law, the program agreement is the contractual instrument that defines the object of the concession between the State and Ports of Italy spa. The Agreement is to some extent superior to the will of the AdSPs, which do not have the substantial possibility of not adhering or not giving their consent (except for the “space” left in the conference of presidents). In this context, it clearly emerges how industrial policy and public planning, which also interfere with local development policies, are deeply overlapping. Instead, it would be appropriate to find ways of balancing that, as Gian Enzo rightly pointed out, guarantee some kind of return for the territory. This is one of the aspects on which one can and must work.
Gian Enzo, with Ports of Italy spa, the role of the Port System Authorities is clearly weakened. Some observers believe that the next step will be their possible reduction. Science fiction or reality?
The draft law provides for the merger of port systems where they are unable, on their own, to achieve certain asset-economic objectives over several financial years. It is evident that the financing methods of Ports of Italy spa make it extremely challenging for many Port System Authorities to achieve objectives that are already difficult to reach today. So yes, I believe the law potentially goes in the direction of a reduction in the number of AdSPs. However, the fundamental ambiguity underlying the legislative instrument chosen to carry out the reform must be emphasized: a draft law. The AdSPs at greatest risk are in some of the most populated areas of the country. I find it very difficult for parliamentarians to accept the possibility of the suppression of AdSPs falling within their electoral base. If the underlying idea was to achieve a reorganization and reduction of the decision-making bodies, the Government should have chosen a different legislative instrument.
Davide, do you share Duci’s reflections?
I agree with him.
It is clear that the planned financing mechanism for Porti d’Italia spa through the resources managed by the AdSPs, and the consequent identification for the latter of increasingly challenging economic-financial balance objectives, reflect the Government’s will to make very specific choices in terms of supervision and regulation. However, these choices presuppose instruments different from the bill, which by its nature is subject to the burdens and honors of political consensus.
Davide, at the meeting organized in Genoa, at the Fratellanza e progresso club among coalmen, by the Officine Sampierdarenesi Gianfranco Angusti, you emphasized that the legislative technique used to create a central investment company is not a new thing. “It is – you said – something that the government is doing quite systematically, even on other fronts, and which could also have purposes that have nothing to do with the port world.” Could you explain your thoughts better?
Very simply, if we observe the legislative measures of the last two years, we can notice a growing tendency by the State to build central companies managed by the Presidency of the Council or by the MEF, whose primary purpose is to invest in and manage public works according to criteria typical of a market economy with a financial connotation. Right or wrong, it is evident that the strategy of a Porti d’Italia spa cannot be read only from the exclusive perspective of port needs. There is a design of institutional policy and the introduction of central entities that make investments instead of the State or on its behalf. Entities that could also relieve the State budget thanks to their investment capabilities and when the conditions are met.
Gian Enzo, do you agree?
I agree with Maresca and I add that in the short-medium term this reform will impact mainly, in terms of absorption of financial resources, precisely the largest ports, that is, those that are already generating the highest revenues. At the same time, these same ports could be the ones enhanced in the long term, but only and exclusively if the strategic choices of Porti d’Italia spa are led by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. I believe, in fact, that management directed by the MEF could be dangerous for the largest ports, regardless of the time horizon.
Let’s close this double interview with a brief remark on the true great absentee of the reform: port labor. Gian Enzo, the floor is yours.
It is a topic that I hope will be addressed during the law’s approval process. Objectively, some interventions in support of Labor have become a necessity today in light of the major changes affecting our ports. From containers onwards, automation processes have entered and are entering significantly into work processes, with negative repercussions on traditional jobs, which are easily replaceable by machines. New professions are emerging, new training needs, and with them, a framework characterized by the progressive aging of port workers is taking shape, whose excessively high average age is having a significant impact on the increase in accidents and injuries.
I specifically believe that the law must intervene on these topics: no one can hide behind a finger and pretend nothing is wrong anymore.
Davide, why does such an important topic continue to remain in the background of the political debate?
It is an extremely delicate subject that deserves separate, in-depth treatment. It is difficult to think it could be included in a bill focused on defining a new model of port governance.
