More than 30 committees with thousands of adherents and various initiatives and forms of struggle[1] and mobilisation are shaking Sardinia, leading up to the big demonstration in Cagliari on 30 August against the major projects that, in the name of the ‘green economy’, aim to accentuate the semi-colonial oppression of the island through the colossal increase of rents in favour of Italian and foreign financial capital, the increasing militarisation of the territory, the promotion of the depopulation of the island[2] , the devastation of the environmental heritage and the further robbery of the island’s natural resources. A situation highlighted by works such as the ‘Tyrrhenian Link’, a gigantic plant for the export of electricity on a continuous cycle through large underground cables linking Sicily and Campania along the northern Italian and central European route.
According to a recent report[3] Sardinia produces much more energy than it consumes. Where does this energy come from? “73% from fossil fuels. This is a policy imposed by the Italian imperialist state on the Sardinian people. Yet all this seems to be only the beginning, with a new onslaught looming for the installation of wind farms and photovoltaic plants[4] by monopolistic companies from northern Italy and abroad[5],[6] . The projects presented are capable of producing 56 thousand megawatts in Sardinia, an energy requirement, the report states, sufficient for 50 million inhabitants. The centre-right and centre-left governments, up to, in particular, the current fascist government, have worked in recent years to remove environmental, landscape and archaeological constraints (particularly numerous in Sardinia), which hindered the installation of public works in areas of public interest, consequently also blocking speculation. The removal of these constraints, together with the ventilated expropriations of land intended for the installations of the ‘ecological revolution’, unleashed the assault of financial capital. A referent of the Sardinian Committees[7] highlights the theft of land rent that is being determined to the detriment of farmers and breeders[8] forced to accept low compensation under the threat of forced expropriation of land (thousands of hectares in all) for the installation of hundreds of wind turbines and photovoltaic plants[9] . According to this referent, for a compensation of about 5,000 euros per wind blade, the monopolistic companies in charge of building the plants and, above all, of managing the electricity produced by them, would earn more than one million euros in rents. All this, therefore, to the detriment not only of small producers, but also of the population as a whole, on whom the production, transport and installation costs of the plants and the costs of using electricity, multiplied by the monopoly profits of the construction companies and the managing bodies, would be borne.
An ‘ecological transition’ that is also inextricably linked and functional to the great European corridors that are being completed, aimed not only at civil and military transport[10] , but also at enhancing the network of oil and gas pipelines and that are now also preparing to channel the production/supply of electricity along a privileged route that proceeds from the South towards the North represented by the imperialist countries.
Giorgia Meloni, premier of the fascist government, openly exposed this semi-colonial, expansionist, warmongering logic: ‘With a little intelligence and resources well spent, we could make the South the energy supply hub of Europe’. Giacomo Donnini, Terna’s director of major projects and international development, said of the Tyrrhenian: “Energy from renewable sources is by its very nature intermittent and therefore we need to provide for a major transport capacity: a grid that allows it to be taken where it is produced and brought to where it is consumed, basically therefore from the South to the North, where most of the civil and industrial consumption is concentrated.”[11]
Works such as the ‘Tyrrhenian Link’ connect with similar ones being implemented in Tunisia. This is a manifestation of the accentuation of imperialist exploitation in favour of the Great Financial Capital of Northern Italy and the major European powers and the deepening of the semi-colonial oppression of North Africa, the Islands (Sardinia and Sicily) and the rest of the Mezzogiorno.
The website industriaitaliana.it reports, highlighting without obviously wanting to, the unequal exchange regarding the robbery of the resources of North Africa and the South in favour of imperialism: Terna, “The company led by CEO Giuseppina Di Foggia, will invest a total of 3.7 billion euro (of which 1.9 billion financed by the EIB) to connect Sardinia to Sicily and the latter to Campania… a strategic step to prepare the ground for Italy’s positioning as the Mediterranean energy hub, a place of energy exchanges between Europe and Africa. In this context, it should be recalled that on 9 December last, the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security began the authorisation process for the new electricity interconnection developed by Terna between Italy and Tunisia, a 600 MW direct current submarine energy bridge 200 km long and laid at a maximum depth of 800 metres’[12] .
[1] From the dozens of popular assemblies and demonstrations in the various villages to the blockades of the blades at the port of Oristano with the clash with the police. The newspapers also reported cases of sabotage of wind turbines.
[2] In the text ‘Violare gli spazi – Militarizzazione in tempo di pace e resistenza locale’ (published by Ombre Corte, Verona)
by Aide Esu, professor of Sociology at the University of Cagliari, it is believed that Sardinia is the object of a strategy of imperialism centred on the category of ‘strategic island concept’ on a par with e.g. the Philippines and other islands in the Pacific Ocean that are identified as privileged locations for a military colonial presence. This strategy also tends to promote the depopulation of territories.
[3] https://www.italiachecambia.org/2023/11/comitati-sardi-resistenza-energia/
[4] We have 111 projects with some 2700 shovels over 200 metres high. The impact on Sardinian territory would be definitive, permanent and incontrovertible. The impact on the landscape would be unimaginable, but the impact due to the disruption caused by the construction of the interminable network of cable ducts and the construction of the transformer stations would also be significant. Catastrophic is the negative impact on land with the highest density of archaeological sites in the world. https://www.italiachecambia.org/2024/03/tyrrhenian-link-grande-opera/
[5] Riccardo De Zan, Terna’s Head of Design and Construction of Hvdc and Marine Plants, says: “250 companies will participate in the construction of the Tyrrhenian Link, with important spin-offs in terms of employment for the territories involved. “For every euro of the €3.7 billion totally invested by Terna,” concludes Donnini, “we estimate that between €2 and €3 of additional GDP will be generated.” https://www.industriaitaliana.it/terna-tyrrhenian-link-energia/
[6] The Sardinian committees also report that ‘At the end of April, it emerged that China’s largest photovoltaic panel factory, Chint, had snapped up the most important solar project ever conceived in Europe from the Spanish company Enersid, stretching its tentacles over a thousand hectares of land in northern Sardinia.
[7] https://www.cronachenuoresi.it/2024/06/24/speculazione-energetica-in-sardegna-una-pala-eolica-produce-oltre-un-milione-di-euro-contro-i-5mila-pagati-per-un-terreno/
[8] The struggles of small farmers against the various forms of manifestation of the oppression of financial capital and semi-colonialism are endemic to the Sardinian situation.
[9] Land is taken away from its owners to achieve the goals of the ‘Green Deal’ as envisaged,as far as Italy is concerned, in the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) and the PNIEC (National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan 2030.
[10] https://www.perlademocraziapopolare.com/ponte-di-messina-tav-bbt-le-grandi-opere-al-servizio-della-guerra-imperialista/
NO PNRR – NO TAV/NO BBT – NO AI CORRIDOI TEN-T DELLA GUERRA IMPERIALISTA
[11] https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2024/07/24/sicuri-che-il-tyrrhenian-link-serva-ai-sardi-sul-cavo-sottomarino-non-ci-hanno-coinvolti/7632370/
[12] Emphasis ours: https://www.industriaitaliana.it/terna-tyrrhenian-link-energia/