Red-hot chips on the Rome-Venice axis with a far from cordial exchange between Luca Zaia and Adolfo Urso. The vanished project of the new billion-dollar Silicon Box settlement in Vigasio in the Verona area is burning. The gigafactory will be built in Novara, Piedmont. So much so that the president of Veneto Luca Zaia calls for the publication of the two dossiers for a question of transparency. For Palazzo Balbi the blow is double given that already, on the same 450 hectares at the crossroads between the Brenner Pass and Corridor V, Intel was supposed to land, but then decided to freeze part of its European investments.
The exchange between Zaia and Urso
The Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Mimit, led by Melonian Adolfo Urso, is holding the reins of the operation. His name, incidentally, continues to appear in the list of possible successors of Zaia right at Palazzo Balbi. It was Zaia himself who lit the fuse yesterday morning: «I ask to remove the secrecy constraint on the dossiers. For us it’s closed there, with Cirio I have excellent relations, but it’s right to avoid sometimes science fiction-like debates. I read somewhere about problems related to infrastructure. Of Silicon Box’s 3.6 billion investment, 30% is public contributionit’s 1.2 billion. If there had been the problem of the Vigasio toll booth, that costs 30 million, which is also on the A22 and is not our responsibility. I have the impression that there are other reasons, but tell us”. The conclusion on “other reasons” must have pissed off Minister Urso because, in the afternoon, a note from Mimit arrives that rebukes Zaia: “With regard to President Zaia’s request to make the projects public, Mimit confirms the maximum availability, transparency and loyal collaboration and remember that the reasons for the choice were communicated by the company itself to the offices of the presidency of the Veneto Region and to the other Regions involved, not least last June 28th”. As if to say that the reasons for the choice are already very clear to Veneto, the unsaid is that Zaia’s is a completely political controversy.
The selection process
«As has already happened for more than a year, the Ministry is ready to support the Veneto Region, – we read further in the Mimit note – like all the regions, in further comparisons with the company – if deemed appropriate – to examine the reasons for the decision in greater depth”. The note recalls how “all the selection process was consistent with what is done in the procedures for attracting investments, in which the Mimit plays a supporting role for investors, who decide in total autonomy the modalities of their establishment. In the case of Silicon Box, the company viewed, assisted by officials of the ministry between August and September 2023, several sites in Piedmont, Veneto, Lombardy and Sicily”. The Mimit puts its version in black and white: the final decision was the private one. «After a direct comparison with the offices of the selected regions, which lasted several months, Silicon Box carried out its own independent evaluation taking into account the logistical-infrastructural offer, – we read in closing – the presence of a ecosystem in the microelectronics sector in the territory and research and development infrastructures in the sector. The ministry has operated and operates in the exclusive interest of Italy, its territories, its businesses”.
And the file
The exchange, however, does not stop here because, in the evening, the counter-reply from Palazzo Balbi arrives: «The choice made by the company is not questioned or the work carried out in these months by all the parties involved. – says Zaia – But I consider the appeal that I made to Mimit important: the Veneto and Piedmont dossiers are covered, as repeatedly reiterated, by a confidentiality agreement». Zaia does not back down: «This is why I propose and request that the files presented for the candidacies be made public: we are witnessing a series of voices that express judgments without having the elements for a discussion on the merits, wise. Vigasio is an area of Veronese of absolute value».
Finally, the leader of the Democratic Party, Vanessa Camani, also enters the debate with a sharp comment: «Zaia invents a sort of state secret on the dossiers for the assignment of the Silicon Box settlement, asks to reveal the secret and chooses the conspiracy route to justify a flop that instead has its origin in an inability to attract for which he is among those responsible”.
