Di Maio returns to invoke the revocation of the concession of Atlantia – Repubblica.it

MILAN – For 17 months, Minister Luigi Di Maio has not ceased to invoke the revocation of the concession for Autostrade per l’Italia, a company controlled by the Atlantia group, and continues to do so today despite the fact that the company spontaneously decided (subject to agreement with the Mit) to self-suspend the 2019 rate increase (which was 0.81%) pending a solution with the government.

“In 2020, one of the first things to be included in the new government agenda will have to be the revocation of the concessions to Autostrade, with the assignment to Anas and the consequent lowering of the motorway tolls”, the M5s leader writes on Facebook. “The families of the victims of the Morandi Bridge are waiting for an answer. And we will give it to them. Not only to them, but to the whole country”. As if that were not enough, Di Maio added: “That the revocation costs 23 billion” to the State is “a huge nonsense”, “a real frame also powered by TV and newspapers that would do anything to discredit the M5S”.

Today, however, a study by the analysis company Brattle examines the system of concessions in the three European countries which have a system similar to the Italian one and a similar compensation calculation system: France, Spain and Portugal. From the study that takes into consideration withdrawal, revocation and termination and also examines the system of concessions for other Italian companies that are network and infrastructure managers such as Adr, Enel and Terna, it emerges that generally any compensation is assessed on the market value of the assets, a value that can be determined either on cash flows or with an auction and not on the depreciation value of the assets.

Moreover, for now the war is still entirely Italian, but in the past the EU had intervened twice in favor of Altantia: the first at the time of the then minister Antonio Di Pietro, when he had asked for and obtained that the concessions were not covered ” unilaterally by the parties “in order to guarantee the investors of the concessionary companies, and the second in 2018 when approving the extinction of the concession from 2038 to 242 for the works of the Gronda, works never done for an arm wrestling with the institutions, he had judged The system of Italian tariffs and concessions is “balanced” with respect to other EU countries.

Also yesterday, the Mit announced that Autostrade per l’Italia (Aspi) “undertook to evaluate solutions for tariff concessions to users as a partial compensation for the inconvenience caused by longer travel times” after having examined together with the authorities “all network criticality profiles, with specific reference to Liguria, Marche and Abruzzo “and the regions in which measures have been taken by the judicial authorities.

The issue of the modification of the concession envisaged by a regulation included in the Milleproroghe decree, approved except for agreements on 21 December, has yet to be resolved, but in the meantime yesterday on the Stock Exchange the market returned to bet that the dealers and the state will find a compromise: the securities in the sector, everyone breathed a sigh of relief with Atlantia recovering 0.71%, Astm 0.43%, Autostrade Meridionali 1.31% and Sias 0.2%.