Stefano Pirani
Venice, the Italian city known for its romantic canals, carnival celebrations and over-tourism, is sinking. It has been battling the rising tides of the Adriatic Sea for centuries, and its own weight is pushing it down. In a desperate attempt to safeguard its “palazzi” along the “Canal Grande”, its infinite little “calli” and its majestic monuments, the Italian government embarked on a gigantic project: the “Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico“, also known as MOSE. This project, a system of mobile barriers designed to protect Venice from high tides – the so-called “acqua alta” – was hailed as a technological marvel. By raising massive gates to block the lagoon’s entrance, it promised to safeguard the city’s future. However, this ambitious attempt to make it emerge and get back to life like a phoenix, from which the famous Venetian theatre takes its name, has only made it sink again, this time because of a corruption scandal.
In 2014, Giorgio Orsoni, the mayor of Venice, and around 30 more people were arrested over suspected corruption in connection with new flood barriers built to protect the city. Eventually, a massive and intertwined system of bribery and corruption was detected, and more than one hundred people, including politicians, judges, public servants and businessmen, were investigated. As a matter of fact, the Venice public prosecutor’s office had been investigating economic activities in the MOSE area for some time. In 2009, a tax audit was ordered against one of the companies involved in constructing the barriers, suspected of having issued some false or inflated invoices to accumulate money in some accounts abroad, to be used then to bribe officials and politicians in Italy. In February 2013, the first arrests occurred and involved the president of one of the construction companies and the personal secretary of the former president of the region Veneto. Also, in the summer of 2013, a new series of arrests affected the consortium president entrusted with the construction of MOSE. The charges vary according to the people involved. The most frequent complaints by the public prosecutors in Venice are corruption, tax fraud and illegal financing of political parties. According to the Attorney General’s Office, the mechanism for obtaining money was the one used in false or inflated invoices so as to obtain more public money than necessary to place on accounts abroad, from which to draw later on alleged bribery activities to obtain favors and expedite practices. For instance, Giancarlo Galan, former president of Veneto, received about one million euros a year between 2005 and 2008, and again in 2012, in order to speed up technical offices, soften the safeguard commission and the control section of the Court of Auditors of Venice. As for Orsoni, he was given 560 thousand euros in total – 110 thousand to his election committee and the rest directly to him.
The judicial investigations are still ongoing, and a new confiscation order worth 21.4 million euros was recently issued against two of the people involved in the scandal.
Piergiorgio Baita (former CEO of Mantovani, one of the contractors of the MOSE Project) and Nicolò Buson (former accountant of the same company) are responsible for being active members of the company system that gave bribes to politicians and state officials to obtain contracts.
Crony capitalism and megaprojects
Eventually, the corrupt situation resulted in long delays and a rise in costs of several billion euros, becoming one of the most expensive projects in Italy. The final cost boomed to €6.2 billion, twice as initially planned, and the delivery of the completed project was delayed by 6 years, from 2014 to 2020. This can be considered as an example of what can happen when megaprojects are financed, designed and delivered in crony-capitalistic countries, such as Italy. Even if Italy is not one of those countries where the national wealth is extremely unequally distributed, the allocation of resources is systematically decided by the state by virtue of political connections rather than the market on supply and demand. And that is what happened with MOSE. In fact, the “Consorzio Venezia Nuova”, deputed to the design, construction and maintenance of the project, was funded in 1983. During the decades, the managers had years to develop those relationships with the local politics that created the right environment for corruption and bribery. A similar case in Italy was the Expo case in Milan in 2015. Other elements that characterize Italy as a crony capitalistic country are red tape, integrity and transparency in public procurements.
Chart 1. Average Transparency Indicator Score: 40.45/100 (source: TI)
Ultimately, the story of MOSE is a stark reminder that corruption does more than waste money—it sabotages the future. For Venice to truly rise above its challenges, Italy must confront the systemic failings that allow such abuses to thrive. This means embracing transparency, reforming public procurement processes, and holding both public and private actors accountable. Without addressing these root causes, no project, however ambitious, can shield Venice from the dual threats of rising seas and pervasive corruption.