The Municipality of Diamante (CS) comes under the spotlight of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Court of Auditors for its repeated refusal to authorize the installation of two mobile telecommunications infrastructures on its territory.
The Calabria TAR deemed that the numerous measures taken by the Municipality violated the obligation of a public administration to comply with the provisions of the judicial authority and sent the file relating to yet another refusal to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Paola. In the meantime, the matter is also being brought to the attention of the Court of Auditors to ascertain any possible fiscal damages.
It will therefore be the criminal and accounting judiciary that will delve into the contours of a matter which, after 8 administrative convictions in the Municipality of Diamante (6 sentences/orders of the TAR and 2 of the Council of State) with 5 sentences for costs (for a total of over 10 thousand euros), has become emblematic of the difficulty in bringing digital and shared infrastructures to some territoriescapable of enabling 4G and 5G services from telecommunications operators.
The context for INWIT
The transmission of the documents to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Paola for non-compliance with the Authority’s provisions (ex art. 650 of the Criminal Code) was decided by the Calabria Regional Administrative Court on 15 February after, starting from May 2020, the municipality of Diamante refused eight times to authorize INWIT to begin work on the construction of telecommunications systems, on the basis of municipal regulations later deemed illegitimate by the TAR itself.
The rulings of the TAR
The municipality of Diamante continued not to comply with the six rulings against it by the TAR itself (which INWIT had appealed to) and the two rulings of the Council of State (which the municipality appealed 3 times after the rejection of his work by the TAR). The administrative judges have in fact always considered the Municipality’s refusal to be illegitimate and at the same time affirmed the validity of INWIT’s reasons which, as manager of a public service, has the de facto obligation to cover the Italian territory with electronic telecommunications services .
“Despite knowing or having to know the legal framework that configures the installation of infrastructures for mobile telecommunications as primary urbanization works, priority as they have public utility characteristics, the Municipality of Diamante has instead reiterated an unjustified obstructive behavior” we read in the press note that traces the entire story.
While numerous simplifications have already been adopted at a national level, at a local level too many municipal regulations still do not allow an adequate step in the creation of infrastructures, limiting their localization to areas that are not useful for coverage purposes, such as cemeteries or landfills. In the case of the Municipality of Diamante, we even reached the paradox of preventing its construction, with a clear delay in the construction of infrastructures fundamental for the digitalisation of the country and for the reduction of the digital divide.
In general, in the last two years approximately 13% of the authorizations requested by INWIT have become the subject of disputes with local administrations.
CS
Opening image: Towerlend in Bolgheri (LI) with a camouflage of an antenna