Italian golden shares - a never-ending story?

Abstract

The Italian ‘golden shares’ created on the basis of Decree-Law No.332/1994 have been overruled by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) back in 2000 in case C-58/99. In 2007 the CJEU has once again pointed on the incompatibility of the GSs with the Community law in Federconsumatori. The Italian government has been reluctant to comply and remove the contested Law. Instead it has tried to justify it by new provisions amending the original law. These new amendments became subject of the second judgement in 2009 on case C-326/07. In 2010, Berlusconi has issued a controversial decree which aimed to comply with the golden share cases C-58/99 and C-326/07. However, the measures proved to be insufficient and the breach of the Community law persisted nonetheless. Now, following the infringement procedure for non-compliance, after more than a decade of procrastination, the Italian government seem to have finally addressed the issue. New Italian technocratic government led by the former EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti significantly amended the original golden share law. Yet again, the original golden share legislation has been amended, not repealed, which in turn has the potential to be incompatible with the EC law. This paper analyses compliance obligations and initiatives which stem from the judgments of the CJEU on the Italian golden shares, assessing whether Italy has acted in good faith towards the sincere co-operation principle enshrined in the Treaty.