«We don’t want to think that the Council of State will agree with the appellants, the environmental associations; but, if it happens, Auronzo and Comelico will become an Indian reservation».
This is the first reaction of the mayor of Auronzo, Dario Vecellio, to the announcement of the hearing in the Council of State for the appeal filed by the environmental acronyms against the sentence of the TAR which annulled the constraints imposed by the Ministry in Comelico and, precisely, in Auronzo.
“We are already 96% committed. With a possible squeeze », she sighs, « we can leave room … for the wolves ».
The appeal of Italia Nostra, Mountain Wilderness and Lipu Vecellio did not expect it. Not even his colleagues at Comelico. «If anything, we harbored some fears towards the Ministry, which came out defeated. We therefore consider it a kind of betrayal.” In Comelico it is explained with the possible reaction to the prospect that the project of the ski connection with the Val Pusteria goes ahead. The comment of the lawyer Bruno Barel who assists the Municipality of Auronzo and who is preparing the intervention in the Council of State is very harsh.
«One of the most striking pathologies of contemporary administrative justice lies in the spread of litigation between public bodies, compared to that of private individuals against the exercise of public power. This cause is emblematic: on the one hand, the Municipalities of Auronzo, Danta, San Pietro, San Nicolò Comelico, Santo Stefano, the Province, the Region; on the other hand, the Ministry of Culture. As if that weren’t enough, the Italia Nostra, Mountain Wilderness Italia and Lipu associations also entered the field to cheer on the Ministry ».
This at the origin. The Veneto Regional Administrative Court has resolved the issue in a fair way: the Dolomites area is already super-constrained on about 96% of the territory, it is not essential and justified that the constraint passes to 100% and moreover becomes very detailed until it has no role and every minimum autonomy the local authorities in the government of their territory.
«In doing so, the Veneto Regional Administrative Court had made peace between the local authorities and the Ministry, which in fact had resumed collaborating without continuing the dispute. But the fans took to the field alone, to continue the dispute at all costs, challenging the decision of the Veneto Tar and thus bypassing even the Ministry of Culture “, underlines Barel. Environmentalists are forcing public bodies, which for their part would prefer renewed collaboration to legal warfare, to continue a judicial dispute. «As if the people of Comelico and Auronzo hadn’t always guarded their territory with love no less than that of a Ministry. There was really no need for it.” With the ruling of last August, the Veneto Regional Administrative Court recognized that any new constraints would have compressed – if not annulled – the possibilities for economic development in the Comelico area. In fact, upon appeal by the Region and the municipalities concerned, it annulled decree no. 1676/2019 of 5 December 2019, issued by the Director General of the Directorate General for Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, which had as its object the declaration of notable public interest in the Alpine area between Comelico and Val d’Ansiei, Municipalities of Auronzo, Danta, Santo Stefano, San Pietro, San Nicolò di Comelico and Comelico Superiore.