On December 30th, 2020 the Decrees of the President of the Council of Ministers Nos. 179 and 180 were published in the Official Gazette; such decrees identify the scope of application of the regulation regarding the notification obligation of certain corporate transactions as well as the exercise of special powers (so called “Golden Powers”) by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in strategic sectors.
The decrees, which have come into force today, January 14th , 2021, have as their object, respectively, the identification of assets and relationships of national interest in the sectors referred to in Article 4 of EU Regulation no. 452/2019 and the identification of strategic assets in the energy, transport and communications sectors.
In particular, decree 179/2020 has identified the following assets and relationships of national interest in the energy sector:
- critical infrastructures where fuels, nuclear materials or radioactive waste are located or to be located, as well as the technologies and infrastructures which carry out the processing, management and transport of such fuels, materials and waste;
- crucial buildings for the use of the critical infrastructures;
- coastal depots of crude oil and petroleum products with a capacity of 100,000 m3 or more used for the domestic market, LNG storage facilities with a capacity of 10,000 m3 or more, oil pipelines for supply from abroad, including to other States, and pipelines for supply to intercontinental airports;
- critical technologies, including platforms, for the management of wholesale markets for natural gas and electricity; and
- economic activities of strategic importance carried out in the energy sector, by undertakings with an annual net turnover of not less than EUR300 million and an average annual number of employees of not less than 250.
Decree 180/2020 leaves substantially unchanged the identification of strategic assets in the national energy system as already identified under the Decree of the President of the Republic of Italy No. 85/2014 that ceases to be effective.
The generic reference by Legislative Decree No. 23/2020 (so called “Liquidity Decree”) to the sectors, including the energy sector, listed under art. 4 of EU Reg. 452/2019 and the identification of strategic assets by Presidential Decree 85/2014, had induced the most to believe that the entire energy chain and the transactions connected to it were included in the scope of application of the Golden Powers.
Thanks to the above mentioned two decrees Nos. 179 and 180, in the energy sector, the scope of application of the special powers of the Italian State as well as the main interpretative doubts regarding the Golden Power notification obligations seem now clarified.
