SOMMARIO:
1. Spunti preliminari per circoscrivere la nozione di affidamento di un servizio pubblico.
2. Un servizio pubblico locale senza “attribuzione”. Il sostegno pubblico alla domanda.
3. Criteri giuridici per ordinare la scelta tra sostegno alla domanda e conformazione dell’offerta. Il rilievo del “principio di concorrenza” e una prima conclusione.
4. Dati normativi e di sistema: il dissolubile legame tra assunzione ed affidamento.
5. L’autonomia contrattuale come fondamento del servizio pubblico alternativo al potere.
6. La residualità dell’art. 23-bis. La centralità dell’autonomia contrattuale degli enti locali.
7.1. Conseguenze della tesi: i limiti all’autoproduzione.
7.2. Segue. Poteri pubblici e poteri contrattuali del soggetto pubblico in fase di esecuzione.
7.3. Segue. La giurisdizione sui servizi pubblici locali.
8.Alcune valutazioni, a consuntivo.
The aim of the article is to review the traditional notion of local public service concession, and through this, to define in new terms the limits of the application of the concerning public law regulation (namely, Article 113 of Decree-Law n. 267/2000 and Article 23-bis of Decree-Law n. 112/2008).
The article tries to demonstrate that local authorities can guarantee a public service without resorting to an administrative act of concession. In this perspective, a model which is radically alternative to concession is analysed.
Local authorities can intervene by granting a subvention to consumers, so to make them addressing to the market in order to buy the service. Following this model, local authorities do not charge providers with offering affordable services (which implies crating a monopoly or an oligopoly in the relevant market of regulated services), but let consumers choose among the existing undertakings. Furthermore, competition among different providers can easily be established: they are supposed to have the economic interest to offer the service at the best conditions. Such a model seems to be coherent with the legislative effort to open even public utilities sector to competition and legally preferable.
Nevertheless, even when local authorities establish the conditions that providers have to follow in service supplying, the act by which they charge the providers with such obligations is not necessarily an administrative act.A concession can only be used when the local entity is empowered with a public authority, that is when the law entitles a local entity with the power to grant exclusive or special rights. In all different circumstances, public entities can only act by contract: they are not subject to the provisionsofArticle113 oftheDecree-Law n.267/2000andArticle23-bisofthe Decree-Law n. 112/2008 but to those of the Code of public contracts.
The article also evaluates the concrete impact of this model, trying to demonstrate that it does not hamper the real possibilities for local authorities to preserve public interests.