What will really change at the Italian Space Agency?
The new structure of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) after the intervention of the government. The in-depth study by Enrico Ferrone
It is the Official Gazette no. 100 (but what a number !!!) to have to attract the attention of the Italian space community, legitimately distracted in these days by Samantha Cristoforetti's MINERVA mission on the International Space Station.
As already anticipated in Start Magazine yesterday by Francis Walsingham , within the DL 36 "Urgent measures for the implementation of the Pnrr" published last Saturday 30 April, articles 30 and 31 regulate the reorganization of the space sector in modification of the decree n. 128 of the distant 2003. The change of pace is radical because the device shifts the surveillance of an agency that has a figure in the order of one billion euros per year from the Minister of the University, to which the attribution of the 'scientific research activity, to the Presidency of the Council, which will govern the strategic guidelines. First of all it is worth asking why the ASI summit has not yet convened a press conference to illustrate the arguments and translate them from the bureaucratese of an official text.
As for the reorganization of ASI, a change was certainly hoped for to revalue all national space activity as a primary asset for Italy and not a showcase in which too often uncontrolled chatter and living room hangups dominate the good work that a pool of scientists highly skilled has been carrying on for years.
In the light of state correspondence, the new president of ASI will be an emanation of the head of government or a member of his council. The novelty is the establishment, upstream of the Agency, of an office, or let's call it in another way, consisting of an official with the title of general manager and a structure of various professionals, with two directors, which will be based in Palazzo Chigi. And this seems to us to be a first hitch in a history of space politics that never ends. Because these professional figures will be external to ASI and it seems plausible that they will be taken from the entourage of some minister or his cabinet. This leads us to ask, first of all, after this change in a further directorate, what powers and what functions the president of the Agency will actually retain. And what powers will the Comint, which is governed by law 7 of 2018, not named and not mentioned by the Gazzetta 100, fall into.
Having asked these questions, as observers, first of all we would like to understand what reasons led the sixty-seventh executive of the Italian Republic to have to increase a board of directors by 50% in contrast with the continuous call for streamlining of the national administrative systems. Two more people on the board of directors of a state agency may appear marginal details, but already the rising costs and times appear to be an additional expense that is a bit worrying.
And again: what is the cause that has prompted the government to move so urgently that it does not have to go through Parliament to define this device?
One answer could be the desire to overcome as quickly as possible an inefficiency so serious that it then had to pass the management of the money destined for the Pnrr of space to the European Space Agency, at a flat cost of over 80 million euros. To have a yardstick, Italy as ESA's third contributor in 2021 paid 589.9 million to the European body as a participation fee. Therefore, if this restoration maneuver by the Agency had been carried out in time, it would have avoided an important outlay for taxpayers.
In short, in this reorganization we see many shadows and a modest planning for the country.
However, the fact that we are close to the next electoral consultation and undoubtedly on the eve of a change of guard at the ASI presidency leaves us for some reflection. Soon, according to rumors, the ASI summit will change. After a long post-commissioner period, ESA will take back its "loan" and a new and – as we have said – more substantial Board of Directors will have to restart the body flanked by two institutional bodies.
Parliament will change both in terms of actors and number; and the race for recycling has begun for all concerned, exactly on the model of the First Republic.
The premier – in a plausible scenario – will move abroad again for some international assignment, seeing the Quirinale fade into a dispute that does not even deserve to be told. There will be a new government and the outgoing executive will have professional figures to reward and lock them up with necessary advance in some room of Roman power in a déjà vu that overcomes all idealism, all populism, all nationalism, all Europeanism and any indifference, an obsolete term. but always current. And once again whether or not space will benefit from it will be just a matter of luck.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/asi-comint-spazio/ on Thu, 05 May 2022 05:31:21 +0000.