According to the European Commission, the port system authorities have to pay income taxes for the economic activity carried out. By early March, the government will have to communicate whether it intends to accept the sentence or not.
Italy is ready to defend port policy from the criticism of Brussels. The Government does not seem to want to accept the conclusions reached by the European Commission according to which the port system authorities must pay income taxes for the economic activity carried out. The Minister of Transport Danilo Toninelli received a 23-page communication signed by Margrethe Vestager, the EU Commissioner for Competition, in early January, following a survey launched in 2013.
Now he has two months to let Italy know whether or not he wants to accept what Europe decided. The conclusion reached by the EU Commission is that the non-economic public bodies that in Italy manage the ports, unlike what happened so far, must be subject to income tax. "The failure to subject economic activities carried out by ports to corporate income tax entails a selective advantage", says Europe, "which risks to distort competition and intra-EU trade. As a consequence, the tax exemption granted to the AdSPs constitutes State aid as it affects intra-EU trade ".
The deadline to correct the current approach is December 31, 2019, but already at the beginning of March Italy will have to communicate to Brussels whether it intends to accept the sentence or not. Rome seems oriented to oppose by means, if necessary, to the European Court of Justice, as it has done recently and for the same reason from the river port of Brussels.
During the week in Rome, the Ministry of Transport summoned the National Coordination Conference of ort system authorities, following which a note was issued where, in summary, it is said that shortly "technical boards will meet to study "possible actions of legislative simplification "and to address" the issue of alleged State aid raised by the European Commission, to avoid a tax that would be senseless and to give value to the Italian specificity in the matter". Edoardo Rixi, deputy minister of transport, of the Northern League, then specified that the government intends to keep the Italian ports "under public control, whose public nature is not up for discussion". It seems therefore to move away from the long-time hypothesis advocated by Rixi to transform the Port System Authorities into a public limited company.
Beyond the official statements, however, Italy will tend to oppose the diktat of Brussels. "But first we need to communicate the non-acceptance of the decision of the EU Commission, then a procedure will open and only then it will be possible to appeal against Brussels", explains a source. The seat for appealing the provision is the EU Court of Justice. If, instead, the orientation of the European Commission for Italy prevails, the effects could in some respects be shocking.
From a financial point of view, the taxation of the economic activities carried out by the port authorities probably would not bring down any stopover but would end up favoring those that already have infrastructures and traffics capable of generating solid revenues for the respective bodies. Then there is the issue related to the transfer of public resources from the State to the AdSP, which are not eligeble according to the community guidelines.
This would lead in the future to the necessary partnership of private individuals to the construction of new infrastructures, but also in this case the airports able to serve wider markets (such as those of the North Tyrrhenian and Northern Adriatic) would benefit. After that, the legal and compensatory actions that the port authorities could undergo if the EU line were passed should not be forgotten.
Currently the system authorities are those of Ancona, Bari, Brindisi, Cagliari, Catania, Civitavecchia, Genoa, La Spezia, Livorno, Marina di Carrara, Messina, Naples, Palermo, Ravenna, Savona, Taranto, Trieste and Venice, and the most important for traffic is that which brings together the three ports of northern Tirreno, Genoa, Savona and Vado Ligure, the latter destined to become one of the most important container terminals in the Mediterranean, thanks to the ongoing investments by the Danish Maersk and the Chinese Cosco to build a new huge quay where the 20 million tons container can be moored.
(Source:Class Editori)
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