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The Mediaset-saving rule do not touch. Although Brussels has raised the red paddle. It is since Friday evening, when the warning letter reached the Ministry of Economic Development, that the government has been talking about it. And the solution is to go straight, to deem the interpretation put in black and white by the DG Connect of the European Commission to be groundless. The shield to protect Silvio Berlusconi’s media creature from Vivendi’s takeover remains the one included in the Covid decree through an amendment. It was definitively approved on 25 November by the Chamber. Not only. The first act of the government’s bailout is ready to take shape: the Communications Guarantees Authority will open an investigation into the aims of the French on Tuesday morning, freezing the potential boarding of Vincent Bolloré.
The double decision – that of the Government and that of the Authority – strengthens the system to protect Mediaset. And cascading the Nazarene of the pandemic, the great exchange between the collaboration offered by Forza Italia to Giuseppe Conte’s executive – which materialized with the yes to the latest budget variance – and the protection of the interests of the Berlusconi family’s company. The methods of this overbuilding can be found in the details of the double decision. What Brussels reproaches the Italian government for is not having notified the rule and this opens up a problem of applicability: until Europe’s judgment arrives – the letter explains – the rule remains at stake. But the letter clarifies issues that have to do with the merit of the law itself, even contemplating the possibility that the government has pulled up an invasive intervention. A response to the comments from Brussels is being prepared at the Ministry of Economic Development. Mirella Liuzzi, undersecretary of the ministry with responsibility for telecommunications, explains a Huffpost that the standard will not be affected: “We believe that it is not a technical standard referable to the directive mentioned in the letter and for this reason we will keep the standard as it is”.
The government’s decision not to touch the Mediaset-saving rule reinforces the motivations, including political ones, which are at the basis of the protection guaranteed to the company of the political leader of Forza Italia. Also because there is a pressing calendar urgency: on December 16 the TAR ruling on the appeal advanced by the French against the 2017 Agcom resolution is expected. The one that forced Vivendi to actually choose between Tim and Mediaset, bringing Bolloré to freeze a large part of the shares held in Berlusconi’s company. The TAR can reopen the game, unfreeze the shares, bring the French back on the heels of Fininvest, the first shareholder of Mediaset. A decision that would lead the French to contend with Berlusconi for command of the control room. More: it would activate the possibility of scaling Mediaset and making it one’s own.
It is precisely by virtue of this risk that the Government, just twenty days ago, had to lock up the Mediaset-saving shield in the Covid decree. The law obliges Agcom to initiate an investigation to ascertain whether Vivendi’s conduct creates distorting effects or determines a position that damages pluralism in the telecommunications market. This is because the French operate in Sic, the system introduced in Italy with the Gasparri law and which includes TV, radio, newspapers, cinema and other strategic assets such as sports sponsorships. And the investigation – the law always says – must be activated precisely in relation to subjects who have important positions within this large market. Vivendi is one of these: it holds 23.9% of Tim and 28.8% of Mediaset. The investigation lasts six months and are months in which the climb would then be frozen. With the anti-takeover rule, therefore, any decision by the TAR to rehabilitate the frozen shares of Vivendi within Mediaset would be blocked. But the rule must be activated, the investigation must start. And it will leave before the decision of the administrative court.
The combination of all these elements also allows the Government to buy time in view of a Gasparri reform which is however inevitable after the ruling of the European Court of Justice on 3 September. On that occasion, in fact, the Court ruled that Vivendi could remain in possession and exercise its 28.8% stake in Mediaset. In practice, the decision of Agcom was disavowed, which precisely on the basis of the Gasparri law had imposed the opposite on the French, that is, to have to choose between Tim and Mediaset and therefore to freeze most of the shares held in Berlusconi’s company.
But despite the Mediaset-saving rule and the expected intervention of Agcom with the start of the investigation, the revolution started by the Court’s decision cannot be stopped. On 3 September the principle of the stakes between the cross-shareholdings owned by Vivendi and the other telecommunications giants fell away. The free all imposes new rules of the game. Among other things, just today the Council of State canceled the Consob resolution which framed Vivendi’s stake in Tim as a controlling stake. It is another element that weakens the framework that until September 3 had kept Mediaset safe from the onslaught of the French. The six-month freeze is also proving precarious here. But so be it. In the meantime, the shield can be dropped on Mediaset. And then in the eternal challenge with Vivendi everything counts. Such as the closure of the investigations launched in 2016 after the Mediaset complaint for the failure of the French to purchase Premium and the attempted takeover. Bolloré and the managing director of the Arnaud de Puyfontaine group are under investigation on charges of market manipulation and obstruction to the exercise of the functions of public supervisory authority. But to overturn the balance again there is the good and the bad weather that Vivendi, through the stake held in Tim, can play on another crucial game: the single network. They are called dangerous intersections.
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