DIRITTO E POLITICA DEI TRASPORTI, 2018, Vol. I, p. 80 – 95
Abstract. From Special Economic Zones (SEZ) to Port Authority. The introduction by Law Decree No. 91/2017 of so-called special economic zones (SEZ) represents an important pre-condition for the possible establishment of a Port Authority in Italy. Such “experiment” aims at verifying the potential for the economic development related to an integrated management of logistic infrastructures, envisaging proposals of new regulation. This new legal framework places at the centre of the political-institutional debate the port privatization topic, seen as a new challenge for the domestic port development, with the aim to grasp new traffics of people and goods within a foreseeable scenario of global market. The setting-up of the Port Authority preliminarily implies an alignment of the current port regulation to
the airport regulation in terms of governance, taking into account that today the port and airport sectors are managed in two diametrically opposite ways, being the former managed by private entities and the latter in public ownership.
The port regulatory reform should go through a deep review of the domestic Navigation Code, maritime section, which dates back to 1942, and it might fully leverage from the positive airport privatization experience, especially in terms of management model, based on the allocation to private managing company of long-term concessions of airport infrastructures