I’ve had a single objective from the moment I became a Minister: to serve the country and its citizens. The dispute that is ongoing with the Autostrade company and in general with the motorway concessionaires is fruit of a wish to define rules that protect the rights of Italians.
The ambiguous silence of the other parties concerning this national issue, about primary infrastructures for the development of the country is demeaning. Behind the concessionaires there are very powerful lobbies.
Their interests don’t seem to coincide with those of Italian citizens, but they can in fact match with those of some parties.

L’Espresso has published an interview with Marco Ponti, Professor of Economics and Transport and one of the most important European experts.
It is an interview in which he criticizes some of my positions but it clearly expresses the following concepts:
- “extraordinary profits are made without great increases in efficiency”
- “(the system) is too unbalanced in favour of the concessionaires and does little to protect the users from the gains made by the monopoly”
- “(what we have seen so far has little to do with a price cap) because in fact it doesn’t give back to the users the excess profits that the regulated body accumulates”
- “we have a system that does not satisfy the needs of viability nor the efficiency of the concessionaires”
- “(investments over long distances) there are no advantages to entrust them to private companies because the industrial content is too thin”
- “(in relation to the tariffs) the system should be changed to face up to the defects of the excess profits that haven’t been given back, the investments that have not been done and so on”

This is a reality visible to the eyes of every car driver.

From the beginning of the Autostrade-Abertis situation, the main discussion areas have been on finance, mergers, and Stock Exchange.
There has been no or not enough discussion about the protection of the rights of citizens, of the fairness of the concessionaire-State relationship, of the policy of developing the infrastructure in connection with the territory. There has been much discussion about money, and about groups that already are earning a lot and would like to earn even more.
For these people, the problem is that the motorways belong to the State, not to the concessionaires. The substance is not the market, but good management. This is the only criteria I intend to use to judge the work of the concessionaires.