BRUSSELS. The recent thud of TIM shares, caused by press rumors that the Rete Unica plan would no longer be supported by the government, speaks volumes about the pain of the super merger between TIM and Open Fiber, which has been talked about for more than a year. . The operation appears and disappears like a karst river and, although it is told as a deal between private companies, the hypersensitivity of the TIM share instead tells us another story: without a convinced government involvement, the Rete Unica operation seems not to have hopes. In part because, with the exit of ENEL, the role of Cassa Depositi and therefore of the Treasury becomes decisive; partly because, without the strong support of the government, the Rete Unica dossier has no chance of overcoming the objections of Brussels. The antitrust obstacle is too serious and the issue of TIM’s debt, which the other European chancelleries want to keep separate from the Recovery funds, is no less complicated. Therefore, supporting the TIM dossier in Brussels would require the government to make the same commitment as for Alitalia, and with equally uncertain expectations. This is the reason why simple press indiscretions (however without objective official feedback) about a potential government disaffection are enough to trigger panic (on the stock market, at least).
The coldness of the current executive cannot be stigmatized too much, since the previous government, Count II, seemed more complacent, but in truth it had an ambiguous position: on the one hand there was the line of the MEF, which advocated the TIM-led merger, on the other hand that of MISE which excluded the creation of a vertically integrated monopoly and indicated public control as the solution. Two irreconcilable points of view that did not clash just because the fall of Count II prevented a redde rationem from being reached. In the meantime, this basic ambiguity has allowed the TIM / Open Fiber dossier to move forward in the blessed hope that, sooner or later, the government, or rather any government, would find itself faced with a fait accompli, that is to say the project carried out. ahead by TIM to be ratified by force. This belief was also fueled by the fact that in Parliament there was, and still persists, a very strong and bipartisan support for the Single Network: but it is an ideological and flag support, and no less ambiguous than that of the Conte II government, because the parties have not conducted in-depth analyzes on the reasons and methods of the Single Network.
The new government led by Draghi was certainly not very convinced of the TIM / Open Fiber operation but, also considering the cheering in Parliament, it was careful not to bury it, alleging that it would be a question between private companies. Oibò: it is curious to de-list an operation that recreates a monopoly of connectivity in a large European market as a private deal: in France or Germany it would take much less to make it a state deal. But so be it. The result is that no minister of the new executive has clearly taken a position on the Single Network, if anything an attitude of prudence has taken over, because whenever a member of the executive expresses doubts about the operation, the TIM stock collapses, and therefore no one wants to run. the risk of going down in history as the minister who drowned TIM and with it the legend of the Single Network.
Fortunately the Recovery Fund came to the rescue of the Draghi government, whose projects and related funding had to be planned by the end of April (with a few more weeks for authorization from Brussels). A total misalignment has therefore been created between the times of the Recovery (now) and those of the Single Network (for which it would take at least 2 years between company agreements and antitrust authorizations). Moreover, the European Commission would certainly not have tolerated that the Recovery funds went to a monopolist private company and it is likely that Brussels discreetly let Rome know that for connectivity competitive tenders were needed (on the model of those won by Open Fiber in the white areas). The Italian government is therefore preparing to prepare this competitive recipe for the areas of the country (the so-called gray areas) where it is necessary to invest in very high-speed networks. Hence the plural “networks”, instead of the singular “network” (ie the Single Network as the only beneficiary of public funds) on which the press has speculated so much. Obviously there will be some discussion regarding the tender procedures, but I would bet on a tightening of Brussels towards some imaginative hypotheses that have already been circulated: for example that of the consortium among all the operators, as it is considered illegal in the antitrust manuals; and that of co-investment, since this institution presupposes a differentiated treatment between operators, i.e. between those who co-invest and those who do not, while with the use of public funds access to the financed infrastructure must be granted indiscriminately to all , without differentiation. Moreover, if there is the availability of a plurality of operators to co-invest, the very reason for public funding is no longer valid.
The Single Network is not dead but, to paraphrase an old saying, it doesn’t feel very good. Of course, in the future nothing prevents the private parties from giving new life to the project and that a government, the current one or the next, is more enthusiastic. But we must consider the time factor: the further we go, the more operators invest in very high-speed networks: Open Fiber, TIM itself, and various local operators, both fixed and wireless. The whole philosophy of the Single Network according to which investments should not be duplicated is now contradicted by events and market forces. Two thirds of the country are already covered in fact or on the basis of commitments undertaken by operators: these are the black areas, i.e. metropolitan, where Open Fiber, TIM and the others compete in market conditions, and the white areas, i.e. rural, where Open Fiber must continue to roll out the new networks with the funds already allocated from the Ultrabrodband Plan. The gray areas remain, some of which are however destined to become “black” because by June operators can declare that they want to invest in optical fiber. For everything else there are the funds of the Recovery. In other words, by 2026, as prefigured by Minister Colao, the country could achieve its connectivity objectives, thanks to the competing efforts of Open Fiber, TIM and the smaller ones. At that point, what will the Single Network be for? A single national infrastructure is needed when you have to start with investments from scratch, not when we are on the home straight. But all this cannot be said in Italy, because as soon as a few titled characters try to say that the Single Network no longer makes sense, the TIM title makes a splash. And then go on like this with this slow twilight, pretending that the operation will take place one day, or counting that it will be forgotten without making too much noise.
@InnoGenna
* Lawyer specialized in European policies and regulations for digital, competition and liberalization