Institutions

In 1973, Italy’s Parliament declared the "safeguarding of Venice and its Lagoon an issue of preeminent national interest" (Law no. 171/1973). The national government is the highest authority for protection efforts.

Two institutions have central roles.

The Magistrato alle Acque - This office of the national Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport has competence for the safeguarding of the Venice Lagoon. The office, originally created in the 15^th Century, was refounded in 1907 to protect the mainland from river flooding and to defend the lagoon’s environment.

An interministerial committee, also with local government representatives, oversees overall policy and coordination (created on the basis of Law no. 798/1984). It is commonly called the "Comitatone" : the big committee.

The result: poor governance

In our analysis, public institutions have become weaker and the state has largely renounced its role in protecting Venice and its Lagoon.

In fact, the last 20 years have seen a progressive impoverishment of the Magistrato’s technical capacities: it has become more an accounting than a scientific and technical body. Technical competence has steadily moved to the Consortium, which retains the studies commissioned and financed with national government money under the special laws for Venice (only a part of these studies have been published).

The mechanism of an "exclusive concession" — not only for design and construction, but also research and preliminary studies — has resulted in the lack of meaningful technical debate, which depends on the open comparison of ideas in a competitive system. Specifically, alternatives to the closure of the Venice Lagoon’s three outlets to the sea — and to the Consortium’s dam project, commonly called the "MoSE" — have received scarce consideration.

Our appeal to the European Commission

Italia Nostra, led by the Venice Chapter, opposed from the start the designation of an "exclusive concessionaire".

In 1998, after years of appeals to national institutions, the Venice Chapter organised a workshop on the legal issues created by the "exclusive concession" and the resulting monopoly. The participating experts concluded that this system violates European law, including:

• the principles of open competition enunciated by the European Union’s underlying treaties; and
• the specific requirements for assigning public works contracts.

Since the system of the "exclusive concession" and the lack of free competition, also for the study phase, can determine the quality of solutions chosen, Italia Nostra presented an appeal to the European Commission in July 1998. The appeal was accepted, and the Commission opened an infraction procedure to investigate violations of European directives.

In the preliminary phase of investigations, Commission appeared to accept Italia Nostra’s position. Unfortunately, in 2002 the European Commission chose to resolve the situation at the political level and closed the investigation. The Commission accepted a compromise that leaves us perplexed: the Venice Consortium agrees to sub-contract a part of future works — through open bidding organised by the Consortium itself (this under a June 2002 amendment, which we have not been allowed to see, to the 1991 Agreement between the Magistrato and the Consortium). According to the Italian government, this mechanism overcomes the legal issues Italia Nostra identified. However, the Consortium retains full direction of the future "MoSE" project and also remains exclusive concessionaire for the delicate works to protect the Lagoon of Venice.

This political compromise proves the basic merit of our appeal. However, it is completely insufficient in resolving the problems created by an ongoing monopoly of ideas, studies, design and construction.

Venice and its Lagoon are part of our national heritage. Together, they are listed as one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites. The Venice chapter of Italia Nostra continues to oppose the "exclusive concession" and will continue to work for better governance of this unique and delicate site.