All the spatial mess that Colao inherits from Tabacci
What changes after Draghi's decision to entrust Minister Colao with the powers of aerospace programs removed from Undersecretary Tabacci. Francis Walshingham's analysis
Yesterday the Prime Minister communicated to the Council of Ministers the decision to entrust the delegation for aerospace to the Minister for Technological Innovation Vittorio Colao; in this delicate task, given the past, this function remains within the framework of the presidency of the Council as required by Law 7 of 2018 which had defined the new structures of the sector.
Colao assumes this role finding in his hands the embarrassing inheritance left to him by his predecessor who had had a highway in front of him but had taken it the wrong way with a management that is controversial and left to be managed by people with little or no expertise in the sector, but trust me.
In the four months of Tabacci management, unlikely people were included in the Boards of Directors of companies in which ASI participated without an official voice having been raised to evaluate the choices and the possible added value that they brought to the functioning of the structures concerned. The choice of experts with jarring conflicts of interest, if not worse, called to support the undersecretary, more interested in the media implications of the role than in the resolution of the evident management problems in ASI and international in ESA and in Europe that arises is embarrassing. they overlapped without solution.
The hiring of his son in Leonardo and, it is assumed, the arrival in Asi of his historic bag carrier, whose curriculum speaks for itself, as strategic controller of the funds expected from the Pnrr, supported by the president of the Agency and with a three-year contract that , it is said, of over four hundred thousand euros, resulted in the consequent resignation. It remains to be understood why the other delegation assigned to him remained with the undersecretary, given that history has shown that in other countries, even for reasons of minor ethical importance, those responsible resigned from every position, disappearing from the front end of politics.
Similar perplexity produces the total absence and apparent disinterest of the Miur which is the vigilant Ministry by law but has never played this role, reducing itself to irrelevance in the overall context, Comint included.
This is part of the non-exciting picture left to Minister Colao.
Now let's see which strategic issues are still open on which it is necessary to intervene quickly and in a qualified manner taking into account that our European competitors have already been in action for some time without anyone who should have taken any concrete initiative.
The NRP foresees around 2.3 billion euros to be allocated to the Space, thus confirming the national interest and its strategic importance in industrial terms given that this type of investment generates a driving force of 4 to 6 times of overall repercussions involving both large industry nationally than the many Italian SMEs, overall highly qualified and leaders in some leading sectors.
All this must be seen bearing in mind the new European framework that is settling in terms of balance between strong countries and the role of the European Union. In his next budget, Commissioner Thierry Breton, from France, has foreseen an item of around € 15 billion for the space sector.
In this regard, it should be noted that, although some rumors had long ago alerted those responsible to the fact that it was useful, if not necessary, for Italy to come into play at that level by claiming the post of deputy director behind Breton, nothing has so far been put in place.
In the new European governance, ESA, historically the main actor of the spatial context, slowly slips towards the role of implementing agency of the policies decided in Brussels and it is no coincidence that its management has been left to others, preferring France to settle in the central command post .
The old Prague-based agency that managed Galileo, Gsa, has been heavily reinforced in terms of staff and institutional tasks by becoming the Euspa (European Union Agency for the Space Program): it will manage the Egnos and Galileo programs and is responsible for the development of new generation systems, the development of services and related activities. Italy had the vice presidency of the GSA covered by a highly competent ASI manager but, of course, in recent times, in the absence of a qualified political guide and no real negotiating skills, it has disappeared from the top positions of the Euspas.
The same inglorious end, as is well known, happened to the General Management of ESA which by unwritten practice should have touched Italy after France and Germany; we presented ourselves, the only country, with a government candidate to say the least weak and difficult to defend but with the addition of a candidate, well known for his attempts to compete for every Italian or European top position, regularly losing and in low ranking despite an important kinship heralded regularly as needed.
Today Euspa has a director of the Czech Republic and ESA an Austrian : both professionally excellent from countries that contribute negligibly to European space budgets but adequately supported by their respective governments, with initiatives developed at the right time with capable politicians and technicians to uphold and guarantee their respective national interests.
On August 31, the deadline for submitting candidacies for three strategic ESA Departments expires: the foreign names that are heard around suggest that the selection will be tightened, also given the presence of internal ESA candidates who are well versed in both functioning management with many years of experience in their management. Once again Italy is gasping because, in fact, as far as is known, nothing concrete has been set up as, instead, our competitors have long ago built: another example of the international irrelevance bequeathed by the previous management . In 15 days, however, the Council will have to meet to decide the short lists for each of the three positions: but again as far as is known, it seems that for now nothing has been planned at national level not even for the Navigation Directorate despite having a candidate with an excellent curriculum, the former Vice-President of Gsa.
By the end of September the three names of the chosen ones will be made official and, again, as Italy we find ourselves in another embarrassing situation: as a rule, the president of ASI should formally represent us, but here the problem arises. He is an ESA officer seconded to our agency who should hire, for Italy, choices of people who will become his superiors once he returns to his place of work, Estec, where he held the A5 position. The conflict of interest, as well as embarrassing, is all the more jarring given that his managerial skills and the way he is managing the ASI are well known in the sector.
As already happened during the meetings of the Council for the choice of the ESA Director General, there is a strong probability that some representative of the delegations of the Nordic countries will raise the case again, creating further embarrassment for us. In this case, the previous solution will not remain to be adopted by having us represented by our Ambassador to the OECD (or by his representative) but certainly the situation weakens the Italian position a priori since after almost a year the case has not been definitively resolved by letting it float. in limbo.
The problems that Minister Colao will have to face do not end here: the problem of the reorganization of launchers in Europe remains unsolved, where until yesterday, thanks to the success of the various versions of the Vega, we actually had a monopoly on small carriers.
This position is heavily endangered by the German interests, accompanied by Spain, to enter the sector of small launchers, all with the French approval that historically controls the sector with an eye always turned to the Ariane 6 project, despite costs and delays. It will be necessary to define a serious national policy, never defined up to now, to safeguard both national interests and our position, with equal weight, in the Franco-German agreements that have materialized in recent months in the total neglect of those who should have kept their eyes open.
In Asi the activities do not run as they should: a lot of personnel, even if well qualified, are disillusioned and lose motivation given the management in progress also lacking a vision projected on appearing rather than acting. Just remember the heavy delays – two years – of the Platinum program which should have represented a flagship of the country and which instead struggles to succeed: to this is added a non-positive industrial judgment on what should be equanimity in the selection and promotion of industrial programs.
The work that awaits the delegate minister is not easy, the expectations of the entire sector are clear: it is expected that all the "family" choices of unskilled people made so far will be canceled, that experts without the heavy conflicts of interest that have been chosen will be chosen. have characterized the choices of the previous management and that, finally, merit is really assessed to build a support structure for the minister and the Comint.
As was the case with the choice of Mario Draghi as Prime Minister, we select truly qualified, competent people, who have no need or interest in pursuing any career but are serious civil servants ready to commit themselves to help the government work in to raise the country also in the space sector.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/spazio-colao-tabacci-aerospazio-draghi/ on Fri, 27 Aug 2021 10:10:13 +0000.