Fratoianni, a friend of the bosses

Nicola Fratoianni calls for “a return to public control of all the country’s infrastructure networks and strategic services, starting with water and energy”. Someone ought to inform him that this is already the case: the major electricity transmission and gas transport networks are managed, respectively, by Terna and Snam, publicly controlled companies. Those responsible for the local distribution of energy commodities are largely part of publicly controlled companies, within groups such as Enel, A2A, Iren, Hera and Italgas. As for water, around 95 per cent of Italians are served by publicly controlled operators. The rail, motorway and telecommunications networks are entirely or largely managed by public entities. All the major companies in the electricity, gas and telecommunications sectors are publicly controlled.

In this context, the proposal put forward by the leader of Avs is surreal: the state would derive no benefit from buying what it already controls, taking a stake in companies whose top management it already appoints and which, even in the rare cases where they are effectively private, are strictly regulated. On the other hand, buying out the shares held by minority shareholders would drain hundreds of billions from the public budget: taking only the companies controlled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) – which account for around a third of the Italian Stock Exchange’s total market capitalisation – Via XX Settembre holds shares worth around 133 billion out of a total value of 395 billion. Perhaps Fratoianni does not realise it, but to reach 100 per cent ownership, the state would have to use tax revenue (paid mainly by workers) to compensate investors – those whom, in his rhetoric, he calls ‘speculators’ swimming in ‘extra profits’. AVS was among the supporters of the Superbonus, which channelled hundreds of billions into property rents: now it is the turn of financial rents. If there were a ‘Party of the Bosses’, it would have Fratoianni’s programme.