Prepared by Energy Team
On July 16, 2020, Law Decree no. 76 – “Misure urgenti per la semplificazione e l’innovazione digitale” – was published in the Official Gazette (Gazzetta Ufficiale).
The abovementioned decree contains, as far as it is concerned, the measures on the “semplificazione e accelerazione delle procedure di VIA (EIA procedures)”.
Under the previous legislation, in order to obtain the necessary authorisation, VIA (EIA) procedures required particularly long periods of time, which, with the aforementioned decree, have been rationalized through:
- the obligation on the proposer to submit from the beginning of the procedure the feasibility project or the final project instead of mere project drawings;
- the reduction – in most cases the halving – of the deadlines imposed on the proceeding administration, currently provided for by Legislative Decree no. 152 of 3 April 2006;
- the possibility for a person appointed pursuant to Article 2 of Law no. 241 of 7 August 1990 to exercise the substitute power in the event of inertia in the conclusion of the proceedings;
- the creation of a special fast-track procedure (procedura speciale accellerata) for the execution of VIA (EIA) procedures for works included in the National Integrated Energy and Climate Programme (PNIEC). These procedures will be entrusted to the investigation of a special Commission composed of public employees.
However, the new legislation leaves the field to two divergent considerations.
On the one hand, it seems that the new rules can be welcomed, given the considerable reduction in the time frame provided for therein. On the other hand, however, doubts arise as to whether a mere reduction in the time frame can simplify and, therefore, speed up the procedures in question.
In other words, the main doubt concerns whether it would not have been more efficient to reform the VIA (EIA) procedure, instead of intervening almost exclusively on the time aspect.
As always occurs in similar circumstances, the answer to this question and, therefore, the demonstration of the effectiveness of these new provisions, can only be obtained through direct experience.
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