A recent judgment of the Italian Constitutional Court has found unconstitutional certain provisions of a regional Lombardy law that gave the region’s municipalities the power to oversee the administration of soil and water remediation procedures.

More in detail, judgment no. 160/2023 of Constitutional Court states that Article 5 of Lombardy Regional Law no. 30/2006 does not comply with constitutional rules and is therefore null and void due to its unconstitutionality. Article 5 had vested the municipalities of Lombardy region with the power to exercise the main administrative functions in relation to the soil and water remediation procedures under Part IV, Title V of the Italian Environmental Code, including the power to approve remediation projects.

However, the Constitutional Court found that vesting municipalities with those powers to be inconsistent with the set of competences set out under national law (i.e. the Environmental Code—Legislative Decree no. 152/2006), which provides that the regions are responsible for administrative functions relating to remediation procedures.

Considering that the declaration of unconstitutionality essentially entails the elimination of Lombardy Regional Law no. 30/2006 from the Italian legal system, it is clear that environmental remediation procedures currently pending (and being managed by municipal bodies) will be directly affected and that potential delays affecting these procedures cannot be excluded. In this respect, it should also be noted that several other regional laws contain similar provisions (e.g. Tuscany’s), so the effects of the Constitutional Court ruling are likely to extend far beyond the regional borders of Lombardy.

On July 27, 2023, Lombardy Region published the first preliminary guidelines (Decree no. 11357) in order to (attempt to) address the activities of public authorities following the publication of the constitutional judgment. In this context, operators have also been informed that Lombardy region and the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security are currently discussing a regulatory amendment at the national level to resolve the impasse.