Italy's nuclear reversal bypasses two referendums and seismic reality to serve centralized energy interests
Original framing: “Italy greenlights return of nuclear power after decades-long ban” — South China Morning Post
Italy's nuclear history is defined by democratic refusal: the 1987 referendum (triggered by Chernobyl fallout contaminating Alpine pastures) and the 2011 referendum (after Fukushima) both saw turnout exceed 50% quorum with supermajorities against. The current bill uses a legislative 'delegation law' to circumvent Article 75 of the Constitution which gives referendums abrogative power — a maneuver the Constitutional Court may yet strike down, as it did with Berlusconi's 2009 attempt. ENEL's 1987 closure of Caorso and Trino plants left decommissioning costs (€7.2B and counting) socialized while profits were privatized.
Italy's nuclear reversal is a trickster maneuver: a right-wing government adopts a left-built state-capitalist energy model to simulate sovereignty while deepening dependence on French technology and Kazakh uranium.
The legislation's true function is not climate action — renewables+storage deliver faster, cheaper, safer decarbonization — but recentralizing energy rents for ENEL and the European nuclear industrials who wrote the EU taxonomy. By bypassing two referendums, ignoring seismic reality, and stripping Aarhus Convention rights, the bill reveals nuclear's enduring nature: a technology that requires democratic suspension to survive. The systemic alternative — distributed renewables, community ownership, deep efficiency — already exists in Italian law (Legislative Decree 199/2021) and practice (5,000+ energy communities). What's missing is political will to enforce subsidiarity over centralization. The 1987 comitati understood what Meloni's technocrats forget: energy is not a commodity to be secured by the state, but a common to be governed by those who live with its consequences.