Atlantia, a gesture for the Five Star Movement

Finally, after almost two years of litigation, the constant tug-of-war between the Italian government and the Benetton family, majority shareholders in the Atlantia company, which in turn controlled Autostrade per l'Italia, came to an end. The background to all this was the tragedy experienced on August 14, 2018, when the so-called Morandi Bridge (a viaduct that crossed the city of Genoa and connected its port with the rest of the country) collapsed, killing a total of 43 people. A few months ago, the new bridge was inaugurated, the work of the prestigious Genoese architect Renzo Piano, but what remained to be resolved was the question of whether or not to revoke the concession to Autostrade per l'Italia (and therefore to Atlantia and the powerful Benetton family). Finally, the second Conte government, in a meeting that went on until the early hours of the morning, took a Solomonic solution: the control of the toll roads by Autostrade per l'Italia (around 56% of the total existing in the country) would not be revoked, but Atlantia would be nationalized and the Benetton family, within a year, would be left with a minimum participation in this company and, as a consequence, without the capacity to decide. 

Certainly, the solution to this conflict was not at all easy. Atlantia had made a very serious mistake because the viaduct was under its control and it was supposed to have been maintained and permanently monitored, but the reality was quite different. One thing, however, was for this company to compensate the victims and to be left without the management of this bridge, and another was to revoke the whole of the tender, which, in practice, would have ended up in the courts and with the Italian State having to pay out around 20 billion at a time, as is well known, which is critical for the Italian public coffers, with a debt over GDP which is already at 134.5% and which, after what it suffered as a result of the coronavirus, can go up to 159%. Let us think that there has already been more than one rating agency that has threatened to give a bone-waste rating to the Italian public debt, so the Executive had to be very careful when it came to making a decision. But neither could it leave without sanction Atlantia, to which it had entrusted since 2003 the management of a very substantial part of its payment roads and which now did not intend to assume the consequences of what happened (or at least not in its real dimension).

Populism, demagoguery and lack of knowledge of what governing means were once again part of the solution to this whole affair on the part of the Five Star Movement, which had the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport under its control at the time of the collapse of the Morandi Bridge (the holder of this portfolio was Danilo Tonninelli, one of the 'heavyweights' of the Five Star Movement and a person very close to the then leader of the party and deputy prime minister Di Maio). Since this formation all kinds of accusations were made without any basis, such as that the guilty party was the one that had governed in the previous legislature (the PD, which had controlled the 2013-2018 legislature through the Letta, Renzi and Gentiloni governments). The accusation was completely unfounded, since the renewal of the tender had last taken place in 2008, when the centre-right, and not the centre-left represented by the PD, governed the country.

Without having resolved this conflict, which was also causing a constant fall in the Atlantia Stock Exchange, everything began to straighten out when on September 5, 2019 a new Executive was appointed: a second Government headed by the jurist Conte, but where Tonninelli lost control of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (not only that, but he even left the Government), which was now in the hands of a prominent member of the new coalition partner of the Five Star Movement. In fact, Paola de Micheli, Undersecretary of Economy and Finance in both the Renzi and Gentiloni governments, and the 'right-hand woman' of Nicola Zingaretti, Secretary General of the PD since March 2019, became the new Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, and it was up to her to resolve this huge issue. The solution, as we say, was still not easy in an increasingly bitter conflict, but it was clear that, with the departure of Salvini's Lega and the entry of the PD in its place in the new Executive, the demagogic and populist responses had come to an end. Conte was no longer the "people's lawyer", as he had loved to be called in his first government, but neither had he become the "lawyer of the strong powers", as his former collaborator Salvini, now a bitter enemy, began to call him from September last year.

However, the PD was aware that the final decision had to be to the liking of a weakened Five Star Movement, which has lost almost fifty parliamentarians so far in the legislature. Because, at the end of the day, the reality is that, especially in the Senate, despite the numerous desertions (almost fifteen), this party still contributes practically two thirds of the total number of senators that give a majority to the current government coalition. Not only did Prime Minister Conte know this, but also Nicola Zingaretti and Matteo Renzi, who decided a few months ago to bury the hatchet among their respective losers in view of the polls, in view of possible early elections, gave Zingaretti's PD a very poor number of MPs (with a minimal increase compared to the March 2018 elections, when Renzi was head of the bill because he was still the secretary general of the Democratic Party) and, in turn, Renzi's party is on the verge of becoming an extra-parliamentary force when it now has almost 50 MPs. 

With a center-right that, beyond the decline of the Lega in benefit of the Brothers of Italy of the Roman Meloni, continues to add almost 50% of voting intention, and with an autumn that will be extraordinarily difficult given the very serious recession that is going to hover over the country, Conte, Zingaretti and Renzi agreed a strong measure as was the nationalization of Atlantia, with significant compensation to the families of those killed in the collapse of the bridge and a harsh penalty for the Benetton family. It is not surprising that, as soon as the decision was known, the former minister Tonninelli appeared on social networks with a T-shirt on which the following words could be clearly read: "We have won".

In turn, this drastic solution has allowed investors in Atlantia to breathe, a company that immediately after knowing the decision of the second Conte government, rose by 26% in the stock market. Now the majority owner of this company will not be the Benetton family, but a public entity, the Deposit and Loan Department, which will have 51% of Atlantia. This, in turn, will compensate the victims of the collapse with 3,400 million, while committing to lowering rates for users of the highways they manage. This brings to an end a conflict that has lasted almost two years and that seems to satisfy all parties, while allowing the survival of the current government coalition at a key moment in the negotiation of European funds for the recovery of the battered transalpine economy. But it should not be forgotten that the centre-right is still waiting for its chance; that in September there are elections for the government of up to seven regions (the six that should have voted have already been joined by the Valle d'Aosta, which was due to hold elections in the autumn of this year); and that at any moment the current government majority may become a minority. The second Conte government is guaranteed to survive this summer, but after that everything is possible: in a matter of months, everything will be known.

Pablo Martín de Santa Olalla Saludes is a senior researcher at the Fundación Civismo and author of the book Italia, 2013-2018. From chaos to hope (Liber Factory, 2018).