JUDGMENT NO. 127

YEAR 2026

ITALIAN REPUBLIC

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

composed of:

President: Giovanni AMOROSO;

Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Massimo LUCIANI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has delivered the following

JUDGMENT

in the proceedings concerning the constitutional legitimacy of Article 5, paragraphs 1 and 2, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 15 May 2024 (Urgent provisions for agricultural, fisheries and aquaculture enterprises, as well as for enterprises of national strategic interest), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 101 of 12 July 2024, and of Article 2, paragraph 2, first period, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 25 November 2024, laying down «Regulations on administrative regimes for the production of energy from renewable sources, in implementation of Article 26, paragraphs 4 and 5, letters b) and d), of Law No. 118 of 5 August 2022», brought by the Regional Administrative Court for Lazio, Section Three, by means of four non-final judgments issued on 13 May 2025, registered under numbers 136, 137, 138, and 139 of the 2025 register of orders and published in the Official Journal of the Republic No. 29, 1st special series, for the year 2025.

Having regard to the appearance briefs filed by Elettricità Futura - Unione delle imprese elettriche italiane, ERG Solar holding srl, and FRV Italia srl, as well as the intervention briefs filed by the President of the Council of Ministers;

having heard Judge Rapporteur Massimo Luciani at the public hearing of 14 April 2026;

having heard counsel Carlo Comandè for ERG Solar holding srl and FRV Italia srl, Pina Lombardi for Elettricità Futura - Unione delle imprese elettriche italiane, and State Counsel Giammario Rocchitta for the President of the Council of Ministers;

having deliberated in the chambers on 14 April 2026.

Ritenuto in fatto

1.− By four distinct non-final judgments dated 13 May 2025, registered respectively under numbers 136, 137, 138, and 139 of the 2025 register of orders, the Regional Administrative Court for Lazio, Section Three, raised questions concerning the constitutional legitimacy of: a) Article 5, paragraphs 1 and 2, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 15 May 2024 (Urgent provisions for agricultural, fisheries and aquaculture enterprises, as well as for enterprises of national strategic interest), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 101 of 12 July 2024; b) Article 2, paragraph 2, first period, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 25 November 2024, laying down «Regulations on administrative regimes for the production of energy from renewable sources, in implementation of Article 26, paragraphs 4 and 5, letters b) and d), of Law No. 118 of 5 August 2022».

Paragraph 1 of Article 5 of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 (hereinafter cited in the text as resulting from the conversion law) added paragraph 1-bis to Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 8 November 2021, laying down «Implementation of Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, as amended by Directive (EU) 2023/2413 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 October 2023 amending Directive (EU) 2018/2001, Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 and Directive 98/70/EC as regards the promotion of energy from renewable sources, and repealing Council Directive (EU) 2015/652» – title as amended by Legislative Decree No. 5 of 9 January 2026, laying down «Implementation of Directive (EU) 2023/2413 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 October 2023 amending Directive (EU) 2018/2001, Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 and Directive 98/70/EC as regards the promotion of energy from renewable sources, and repealing Council Directive (EU) 2015/652» –, while the subsequent paragraph 2 defines its scope of application.

A violation of Articles 3, 9, 11, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution is alleged, also in relation to the principles set forth in Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action, amending Regulations (EC) No 663/2009 and (EC) No 715/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, Directives 94/22/EC, 98/70/EC, 2009/31/EC, 2009/73/EC, 2010/31/EU, 2012/27/EU and 2013/30/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, Council Directives 2009/119/EC and (EU) 2015/652 and repealing Regulation (EU) No 525/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, as amended by Directive (EU) 2023/2413 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 October 2023 amending Directive (EU) 2018/2001, Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 and Directive 98/70/EC as regards the promotion of energy from renewable sources, and repealing Council Directive (EU) 2015/652, as well as Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 June 2021 establishing the framework for achieving climate neutrality and amending Regulations (EC) No 401/2009 and (EU) 2018/1999 («European Climate Law»).

1.1.– The Lazio Regional Administrative Court states that it is called upon to rule on the challenge brought by certain companies operating in the sector of energy production from renewable sources, specifically solar energy, against the Decree of the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, issued in concert with the Minister of Culture and the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, of 21 June 2024 (Regulations for the identification of surfaces and suitable areas for the installation of renewable source plants) as well as the related Annexes.

1.2.– On the facts, the referring court specifies that among the initiatives of the applicant companies in the proceedings a quibus, currently under development, was, inter alia, the preparation of projects for the construction of agrivoltaic plants, including «non-advanced» ones, for which the procedures for issuing construction and operating authorizations had yet to be initiated.

1.3.– According to the applicant companies, the provisions set forth in Articles 1, 3, and 7 of the Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024, under the formal exercise of the delegated power referred to in Article 20, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, allegedly introduced criteria that are unlawful and detrimental to their legal standing, as they are liable to jeopardize the authorization of agrivoltaic plant projects currently under preparation.

1.4.– As a preliminary matter, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court argues regarding the impossibility of reaching a constitutionally oriented interpretation of Article 5 of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024.

The referring judge observes that the subject matter of the statutory provision specifically concerns the installation of photovoltaic plants «with ground-mounted modules […] in agricultural zones», acting in a subordinate capacity to the declared «extraordinary necessity and urgency to counter the phenomenon of land consumption of agricultural vocation». From the aforementioned regulatory framework, it can be inferred that the prohibition concerns photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules, deemed incompatible with the agricultural destination of the land and with the need to curb its consumption.

The Lazio Regional Administrative Court, recalling the guidelines on agrivoltaic plants issued on 27 June 2022 by the Energy Department of the Ministry for Ecological Transition, states that the prohibition laid down in Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 would not apply to advanced agrivoltaic plants, since the absence of ground-mounted modules excludes the agricultural land consumption that the provision aims to prevent.

This conclusion is supported both by the reply of the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry to parliamentary question No. 3-01225, submitted on 21 May 2024, according to which «[i]t will […] be possible to install suspended panels, so-called advanced agrivoltaics, beneath which cultivation can take place and all projects linked to the NRRP can be completed» (reference is made to Chamber of Deputies - XIX Legislature - Discussions - Sitting of 22 May 2024 - Shorthand report), and by the bill of the Region of Apulia No. 222 of 23 October 2024, laying down «Identification of surfaces and areas for the installation of renewable source plants in implementation of Article 20, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 8 November 2021 and of Article 3, paragraph 1, of the Decree of the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security of 21 June 2024 (Regulations for the identification of surfaces and suitable areas for the installation of renewable source plants)», which would exclusively permit experimental agrivoltaic plants in agricultural areas.

The referring judge states that the applicant companies produced projects for non-advanced agrivoltaic plants, which unquestionably fall within the statutory prohibition.

Non-advanced agrivoltaic systems are characterized by the installation of modules on the ground and result in the consumption of agricultural land, albeit to a more limited extent compared to traditional photovoltaic plants. Only plants with modules elevated above ground guarantee the coincidence between the surface occupied by crops and that of the agrivoltaic system, without prejudice to the structural elements of the plant resting on the ground which inhibit activity in circumscribed areas of the land (reference is made to the 2022 guidelines on agrivoltaic plants).

According to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, an interpretation excluding all types of agrivoltaic plants from the scope of application of the prohibition would conflict with the literal wording of the provision and its objectives.

Traditional agrivoltaic plants, insofar as they materialize in the installation of panels placed on the ground, must therefore fall within the provision prohibiting the installation of plants «with ground-mounted modules».

The referring judge rules out that Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 can be interpreted as subordinating the prohibition to a preliminary investigation compliant with the 2022 guidelines, as this would result in an inadmissible interpretatio abrogans, in conflict with the literal text and the ratio legis. Indeed, the legislature intended to allow the installation of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules in agricultural areas only in expressly provided cases, so that the adverb «exclusively» confirms the absolute scope of the prohibition outside the contemplated exemptions.

1.5.– The referring judge observes that the impossibility of arriving at an interpretation of the provision that fully satisfies the applicant companies entails the relevance of the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised, given that the prohibition under Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 would preclude the realization of the projects based on their specific location.

Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024 replicates the prohibition enacted by the primary provision, delegating its verbatim transposition to regional law, thereby causing ex se the impossibility of realizing the applicant companies' projects.

The continued validity of the censured provision would preclude any dismantling intervention by the referring judge, as the Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024 complies with the law.

In the absence of a declaration of constitutional illegitimacy of Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024, the request for the annulment of Article 1 of the Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024, to the extent of interest, should be dismissed.

Conversely, a potential declaration of constitutional illegitimacy of the censured provision would entail the annulment of Article 1, paragraph 2, letter d), of the Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024.

1.6.– Regarding the non-manifest groundlessness, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court argues that the censured legislation presents profiles of conflict, first and foremost, with Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, regarding the failure to comply with «the obligations arising from EU law» and, in particular, the principle of the maximum dissemination of renewable energy sources derived from EU legislation.

After having accurately recalled the EU regulatory framework, the referring judge notes that environmental protection and the promotion of renewable energy constitute interdependent policies, highlighting, in light of the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, how the use of renewable sources for electricity generation contributes to environmental protection through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, among the main causes of climate change that the European Union and the Member States are committed to combating.

Increasing the share of renewables constitutes one of the pillars of the package of measures required to reduce such emissions and comply with Law No. 120 of 1 June 2002 (Ratification and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, done at Kyoto on 11 December 1997), as well as other commitments undertaken at EU and international levels for the reduction of such emissions. This, moreover, is also functional to the protection of human and animal health and life, as well as the preservation of plants (reference is made to Court of Justice of the EU, Grand Chamber, judgment of 1 July 2014, Case C-573/12, Ålands Vindkraft AB, and judgment of 13 March 2001, Case C-379/98, PreussenElektra AG).

The referring judge, after extensively recalling Directive 2018/2001/EU, highlights the introduction of a binding Union target for 2030, pursuant to Article 3, aimed at ensuring that the share of energy from renewable sources in gross final consumption reaches at least 32 percent, with provision for a possible upward revision by the Commission based on cost trends, international commitments, and consumption reduction, as well as the sufficiency of national contributions assessed through integrated energy and climate plans. Reference is also made to Regulation (EU) 2021/1119, which established the regulatory framework for climate neutrality, establishing the binding target of net-zero emissions by 2050 and setting, as an intermediate target for 2030, a reduction of at least 55 percent compared to 1990 levels. Directive 2023/2413/EU and Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 are also invoked, which outline the governance system of the Energy Union and Climate Action, based on criteria of reliability, transparency, and efficiency, functional to achieving the Union's climate and energy targets in coherence with the Paris Agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in Paris on 12 December 2015.

In accordance with the consistent case-law of this Court (reference is made to judgments No. 121 and No. 77 of 2022, No. 106 of 2020, No. 286 of 2019, No. 69 of 2018, No. 13 of 2014, and No. 44 of 2011), it is highlighted that EU and national legislation are inspired by the principle of the maximum dissemination of renewable sources, which translates into the general usability of lands for the installation of plants, barring exceptions justified by the protection of other constitutionally relevant interests (reference is also made to judgment of this Court No. 13 of 2014).

It is further noted that the original legislation under Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, regarding the identification of suitable and unsuitable areas, did not introduce generalized preclusions to the use of agricultural land, establishing instead that unusable agricultural surfaces were, inter alia, considered privileged areas for the installation of renewable source plants.

According to the referring judge, the new paragraph 1-bis of Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, as introduced by Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024, subverts the previous framework.

From the list of sites suitable for the installation of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules, it can be inferred that the vast majority of agricultural land, equal to approximately half of the national territory, would be precluded from new interventions of this type, except for mere renovation, modification, or reconstruction, resulting in the impossibility of using additional agricultural soil. It is also specified that the prohibition does not extend – by express provision – solely to projects implementing measures financed by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) or the Complementary Investment Plan to the NRRP, which, however, would not encompass all projects necessary to achieve the targets set by the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (NIECP) (an instrument provided for by EU legislation to achieve the Union's binding targets for the share of renewable energy).

According to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, considering the state of implementation of Article 20, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 and the broad discretion granted to regions by the Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024 in identifying unsuitable areas, the impact of the prohibition would in any case be uncertain and would result in a significant restriction of the areas available for the installation of plants, in potential conflict with Article 15-ter, paragraph 1, second subparagraph, of Directive 2018/2001/EU, inserted by Article 1, point 6), of Directive 2023/2413/EU, according to which «[m]ember States shall ensure that such areas, including existing renewable energy plants, and cooperation mechanisms are commensurate with the estimated trajectories and the planned total installed capacity of renewable energy technologies established in the national energy and climate plans submitted in accordance with Articles 3 and 14 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999».

It is likewise highlighted that, pursuant to Article 32 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999, failure to achieve the targets regarding renewable energy may entail for Member States the obligation to adopt supplementary measures, including financial contributions to the Union renewable energy financing mechanism.

According to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, the indiscriminate subtraction of vast portions of the national territory from the use of photovoltaic technology could hinder the achievement of the targets set for renewable energy, resulting in the need for corrective measures and possible repercussions on public finances.

The generalized preclusion to the installation of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules would furthermore conflict with the principle that, within the process of identifying the areas necessary for national contributions to the Union's overall renewable energy target for 2030 pursuant to paragraph 1 of Article 15-ter of Directive 2013/2413/EU, «[m]ember States shall foster the multi-use of the areas referred to in paragraph 1. Renewable energy projects shall be compatible with pre-existing uses of such areas» (Article 15-ter, paragraph 3, of Directive 2013/2413/EU).

According to the referring judge, the prohibition introduced by Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 would configure an irreconcilable conflict between the agricultural use of land and photovoltaic technology with ground-mounted modules, a conflict that would not exist, or would exist only in part, in the case of agrivoltaics.

The prohibition, furthermore, could hinder the achievement of installed capacity targets from renewable sources and compromise the European climate change adaptation strategy, endangering the achievement of climate neutrality.

In the opinion of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, the prohibition would also conflict with the environmental integration principle referred to in Article 11 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 37 of the Charter of Nice, as it fails to provide for any effective balancing between the interests involved and attributes absolute prevalence to the preservation of the state of the places, without even considering the concrete agricultural usability of the lands.

Finally, the provision appears disorganized with respect to the framework of Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 and inconsistent with the purpose, pursued by the cited European and national legislation, of promoting the maximum dissemination of renewable energy.

1.7.– According to the referring judge, the censured legislation also conflicts with the principle of proportionality (reference is made to Court of Justice of the EU, Fifth Chamber, judgment of 11 June 2009, Case C-170/08, H. J. Nijemeisland, as well as judgment of this Court No. 1 of 2014), thereby violating Article 3 of the Constitution.

The censured measure introduces a generalized and absolute prohibition on the use of photovoltaic technology with ground-mounted modules across a vast portion of the national territory, radically departing from the ordinary model of balancing between the dissemination of renewable energy and environmental, landscape, and cultural protection.

Whereas such interests are normally safeguarded through the identification of unsuitable areas, which nevertheless allow for a concrete verification of the compatibility of individual projects, Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 enacts an absolute and preemptive prevalence of the interest in conserving agricultural land, without any room for balancing with other constitutionally significant interests.

1.8.– The Lazio Regional Administrative Court maintains that the censured provision entails the unconditional sacrifice of the principle of sustainable development and that this conflicts with Articles 3 and 9 of the Constitution and with the established case-law of this Court, according to which «[a]ll fundamental rights protected by the Constitution stand in a relationship of mutual integration and it is therefore impossible to identify one of them that holds absolute prevalence over the others» (reference is made to judgment of this Court No. 85 of 2013).

According to the referring judge, the prohibition introduced by Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 would operate solely on the basis of the agricultural urbanistic classification of the lands, without considering their concrete use, actual agricultural vocation, or crop quality, thereby resulting unreasonable and disproportionate, especially with regard to degraded or unusable areas.

Finally, the referral order highlights that the guidelines under the Decree of the Minister of Economic Development of 10 September 2010 (Guidelines for the authorization of plants fueled by renewable sources) provided that regions could indicate as areas and sites unsuitable for the installation of specific types of plants those areas particularly sensitive and/or vulnerable to territorial or landscape transformations, including agricultural areas affected by quality agro-food productions (organic productions, PDO, PGI, TSG, DOC, DOCG, traditional productions) and/or of particular value with respect to the landscape-cultural context.

The legislation set forth by Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 would also conflict with Commission Recommendation (EU) 2024/1343 of 13 May 2024 on the acceleration of permitting procedures for renewable energy projects and related infrastructure, as it introduces a prohibition that maximizes exclusion zones, lacking adequate concrete foundation and incompatible with the European objective of expanding the availability of spaces intended for the development of renewable energy projects.

1.9.– The referring judge specifies that the identified profiles of constitutional illegitimacy must also be deemed extended to Article 5, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024, to the extent that it introduces a safeguard regime based on the prohibition provided for by paragraph 1, as well as to Article 2, paragraph 2, first period, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, where it provides that «[t]he interventions referred to in Article 1, paragraph 1, are considered to be of public utility, urgent and non-deferrable and may also be located in zones classified as agricultural by current urban planning schemes, in compliance with what is provided for in Article 20, paragraph 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 8 November 2021», since this provision replicates the prohibition set forth in the aforementioned paragraph 1-bis of Article 20 of the amended Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021.

1.10.– On the basis of these premises, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court raises, with reference to Articles 3, 9, 11, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, also in relation to the principles expressed by Directive 2018/2001/EU and Regulation (EU) 2018/1999, as amended by Directive 2023/2413/EU, as well as Regulation (EU) 2021/1119, questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 5, paragraphs 1 and 2, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024, as well as Article 2, paragraph 2, first period, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024.

2.– The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Attorney General’s Office, intervened in all proceedings with separate briefs of identical tenor, requesting that the questions of constitutional legitimacy be declared inadmissible or, in the alternative, unfounded.

2.1.− As a preliminary matter, the intervenor raised an objection of inadmissibility, asserting that the questions are formulated in a merely doubtful manner and are based on undemonstrated factual elements, projected as merely hypothetical prerequisites.

More specifically, the referring judge framed the questions in merely hypothetical terms, assuming – without adequate factual support – that the generalized prohibition on installing photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules on agricultural areas could compromise the achievement of EU targets regarding renewable energy. The challenge would therefore be inadmissible, as it is based on mere conjectures and is not corroborated by certain data or suitable probative elements.

In particular, the referring judge erroneously assimilated the prohibition in question to an absolute preclusion of photovoltaic exploitation of agricultural areas, omitting to consider that advanced agrivoltaic plants remain permitted, being compatible with the agricultural use of the land. It follows that agricultural areas are not entirely removed from solar energy production, but solely from installations incompatible with the simultaneous agricultural destination. State defense observes, finally, that European law in any case provides suitable corrective instruments to address any difficulties in achieving the targets set for 2030.

2.2.− On the merits, the State defense deduces the unfoundedness of the questions.

2.2.1.– As regards the parameters of Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to the cited European legislation and the alleged obstacle to achieving energy efficiency targets, the State Attorney General’s Office maintains that the same reasons put forward in support of inadmissibility would in any case warrant the dismissal of the questions on the merits.

Indeed, there is no element capable of demonstrating that the residual modalities of using agricultural land for solar energy production – from advanced agrivoltaic plants to other hypotheses permitted by the censured legislation – are such as to compromise the achievement of Union targets for environmental protection and energy efficiency. On the contrary, the legislation in question constitutes an expression of a legitimate legislative choice aimed at balancing the needs of energy production with the protection of the agricultural destination of land, also in light of the safeguard mechanisms provided by the European legal order.

2.2.2.– As regards the parameters of Articles 3 and 9 of the Constitution, the State Attorney General’s Office contests the alleged violation of the principle of integration of environmental protections and values, maintaining that the censured legislation is placed within the framework of a necessary balancing between the promotion of renewable energy and the protection of agricultural land, a non-renewable good essential for biodiversity, food security, and environmental sustainability.

To this end, the State defense recalls EU principles on sustainable development, highlighting how the European Union itself pursues a balance between the energy transition and the safeguarding of agricultural territory.

Such an objective implies the adoption of accurate territorial planning accompanied by rigorous environmental assessments, as well as the use of compatible technologies, such as latest-generation agrivoltaics.

According to the State Attorney General’s Office, the referring judge omitted to consider that the maximum dissemination of renewable sources (reference is made to judgments of this Court No. 121 and No. 77 of 2022, No. 106 of 2020, and No. 286 of 2019) does not constitute an absolute value (reference is made to judgment of this Court No. 13 of 2014), and may be balanced with other constitutionally relevant interests, according to a systemic approach already affirmed by the case-law of this Court (reference is made to judgment No. 85 of 2013).

In this perspective, Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 represents a legitimate legislative choice aimed at preventing the irreversible consumption of agricultural land and ensuring balanced territorial governance, without absolutely precluding the energy exploitation of agricultural areas.

2.2.3.– As regards the parameter of Article 3 of the Constitution, the State Attorney General’s Office maintains that the provisions subject to these proceedings are not censurable for lack of proportionality, since the prohibition provided for by Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024, in light of the literal text and the ratio of the norm, does not extend to advanced agrivoltaic plants which, not entailing the installation of ground-mounted modules, do not determine the subtraction of agricultural land that the norm aims to prevent.

The prohibition introduced by Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 does not constitute an absolute preclusion to the construction of plants for the production of energy from renewable sources on a large part of the national territory, as it permits the use of advanced agrivoltaic plants suitable for preserving the continuity of agricultural and pastoral activities. Such a legislative choice constitutes a balanced balance between the protection of agricultural production and the promotion of clean energy, resulting compliant with the principle of proportionality and adequate to the pursuit of energy efficiency objectives.

The regulatory choice would be necessary, since the protection of agricultural production could not be guaranteed by allowing the installation of ground-mounted modules, and would be proportionate in the strict sense, imposing a reasonable sacrifice on operators, who could nevertheless pursue their entrepreneurial objectives through advanced agrivoltaics. Such a solution would constitute a natural and strategic evolution of ground-mounted photovoltaics, suitable for generating a virtuous ecosystem capable of combining agricultural and energy production.

In a systemic perspective, the prohibition does not constitute an absolute and unreasonable preclusion, but rather implements the principle of proportionality, aimed at avoiding the irreversible and generalized sacrifice of agricultural land in the presence of less impactful technical alternatives, thereby representing an essential constraint for renewable development policies characterized by balance and sustainability.

In conclusion, the State defense observes that, in the absence of the censured legislation, there would be a risk of an unlimited expansion of the «right» to install ground-mounted photovoltaic systems, liable to become «tyrannical» with respect to other constitutionally protected goods, such as the protection of agricultural heritage, biodiversity, and soil. The Constitution instead mandates «a continuous and reciprocal balancing between fundamental principles and rights. Without the claim of absoluteness for any of them. […] The point of balance, precisely because it is dynamic and not pre-fixed in principle, must be assessed by the legislature in the enactments of rules and by the constitutional court in review proceedings, according to criteria of proportionality and reasonableness such as not to allow a sacrifice of their essential core» (reference is made to judgment of this Court No. 85 of 2013).

The intervention brief adds that, according to the administrative judge, such balancing had already been accomplished at the European level, without margins for Member States, with the consequence that wind and photovoltaic projects should be entirely realized in function of decarbonization objectives. This would result in the emergence of another «tyrannical» interest, that of climate neutrality, in respect of which every other interest should recede. This approach is nonetheless deemed unshareable, and a systemic and coherent interpretation of European law is advocated, to be coordinated with Article 9 of the Constitution, understood as a limit and balancing criterion, in harmony with Article 4, paragraph 2, of the Treaty on European Union, which safeguards the constitutional identity of Member States.

2.2.3.1.– Regarding the profile of unreasonableness and disproportionality of the prohibition based solely on the urbanistic classification of the area as agricultural, regardless of its concrete use, it is observed that requirements of legal certainty mandate reference to stable legal categories, not to changing factual conditions such as land degradation or temporary disuse. Indeed, urbanistic classification expresses the current and potential vocation of the land.

It is added, finally, that any potential opening towards degraded or unused agricultural areas would, in concrete terms, be scarcely significant, since such surfaces are often unsuitable for the installation of photovoltaic plants due to morphological and structural characteristics.

2.2.3.2.– Nor is the passage of the order shareable where it highlights that the prohibition should be selective and calibrated on crop quality, limited to preserving only areas affected by high-quality agro-food productions (organic, «PDO, PGI, TSG, DOC, DOCG», traditional, or of particular landscape and cultural relevance).

The State Attorney General’s Office notes that such an approach would conflict with the agricultural vocation of the land, inferable from its urbanistic classification, which also permits its future destination for high-quality crops, a possibility that would be compromised by generalized occupation with photovoltaic plants.

It is specified, finally, that the protection of agricultural land does not concern exclusively excellence productions, but also traditional and ordinary ones, to which the principle of soil preservation refers, closely connected to the right to healthy food and national food self-sufficiency. Such interests, referring to typical cultivations of the Mediterranean context, were overlooked by the referring judge, rendering the legislation immune from the alleged vices.

3.– In the proceedings registered under No. 137 of the 2025 register of orders, the association Elettricità Futura - Unione delle imprese elettriche italiane, a party in the main proceedings, also entered an appearance pursuant to Article 3 of the Supplementary Rules for Proceedings before the Constitutional Court, by means of a brief filed on 4 August 2025. After illustrating the national and European regulatory context of reference and recalling various judgments of this Court, the association retraces the most significant passages of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court's non-final judgment.

The association recalls a contribution produced by it, from which it would emerge that to achieve the target of the 2030 electricity plan/REPowerEU in Italy, 84 GW should be installed, of which 57 GW in photovoltaics. In the Italian territory, the total agricultural area (TAA) would amount to 16 million hectares, while the utilized agricultural area (UAA) would amount to 12.5 million hectares. Furthermore, 4 million hectares of agricultural land would be abandoned. By 2023, plants equivalent to a capacity of 30.3 GW would have been installed. Of these, according to GSE, 9.2 GW would be ground-mounted photovoltaic plants using 16,400 hectares, which would equate to only 0.05 percent of the national territory, or 0.13 percent of the UAA. Installing the 84 GW referred to in the 2030 electricity plan/REPowerEU would require up to 70,000 hectares – considering the hypothesis in which the entire target were achieved through the sole use of photovoltaic technology with ground-mounted panels, without taking into account the share installable on buildings – which would equate to 0.2 percent of the Italian territory and 0.4 percent of the TAA. This would be a marginal portion of agricultural land even when compared to the 4 million hectares of abandoned agricultural land and the 12.5 million hectares of UAA.

In light of these data, the association notes that, in the face of a risk of excessive agricultural land consumption deemed non-existent, Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 introduces a general and indiscriminate prohibition on the construction of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules in areas classified for urban planning purposes as agricultural, with an excessively detrimental impact both on private interests and on the objectives themselves, abstractly pursued, of environmental and landscape protection.

The association, therefore, asks this Court to uphold the raised questions.

4.– In the proceedings registered under numbers 137 and 139 of the 2025 register of orders, on 5 August 2025, ERG Solar holding srl and FRV Italia srl respectively entered an appearance as parties in the proceedings a quibus.

Preliminary, the companies highlight how the censured norm does not clarify whether the prohibition provided therein also encompasses agrivoltaic plants, both of the basic type and of the advanced type pursuant to the text applicable ratione temporis of Article 65, paragraphs 1-quater and 1-quinquies, of Decree-Law No. 1 of 24 January 2012 (Urgent provisions for competition, infrastructure development and competitiveness), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 27 of 4 March 2012, which, while sharing ground-mounted module technology with ground photovoltaics, are designed to ensure the continuity of agricultural activities, allowing cultivation and grazing. Consequently, in the absence of explicit exemptions, a generalized and indiscriminate prohibition would also derive with respect to such plants, although the Lazio Regional Administrative Court held, by way of interpretation, that advanced agrivoltaic plants remain excluded from the prohibition, as they do not entail the subtraction of agricultural land within the terms considered by the norm.

The companies also retrace the reasoning of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court’s non-final judgments, with reference to the non-manifest groundlessness of the questions, recalling relevant EU legislation and the pertinent case-law of this Court (reference is made to judgments No. 134, No. 125, and No. 28 of 2025, No. 105 of 2024, and No. 216 of 2022).

It is added that the prohibition under Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 would appear paradoxical in light of real data on the occupation of agricultural land by photovoltaic plants, as highlighted also by Elettricità Futura's contribution. This would reveal the non-existence of the factual presupposition of the depletion of agricultural land, both due to the marginality of surfaces actually usable for installing plants with ground-mounted modules compared to the total agricultural surface, and due to the need to achieve European objectives through a combination of technological solutions, including on existing infrastructure, with a consequent limited impact on agricultural land. The works, moreover, are qualified ex lege as of public utility, functional to environmental protection, precisely to mitigate and balance the land consumption necessary for their realization.

The companies observe furthermore, ad colorandum, that similar measures have never been adopted against speculative interventions of urbanistic transformation of agricultural lands devoid of public purpose, a profile from which the «abnormality» of the censured regulatory choice would derive.

Finally, reference is made to the established case-law of this Court which has repeatedly reaffirmed the relevance of the principle of the maximum dissemination of renewable sources and the need for sector legislation to be consistent with Union objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and combating climate change, with a view to the progressive expansion of renewable energy.

The companies conclude by asking this Court to uphold the raised questions.

5.– On 5 January 2026, in all proceedings, the President of the Council of Ministers filed a brief, reiterating what was already highlighted in the intervention brief.

6.– In the proceedings registered under numbers 137 and 139 of the 2025 register of orders, on 5 January 2026, ERG Solar holding srl and FRV Italia srl also filed a brief.

6.1.– The companies, in addition to reiterating the arguments already developed in their appearance briefs, taking note of the evolution of the regulatory framework, formulate further remarks aimed at confirming both the relevance of the questions and the persisting actuality of their interest in a ruling by this Court on the constitutional illegitimacy of the censured provisions.

More specifically, the companies highlight that, pending the definition of the questions raised before this Court, Decree-Law No. 175 of 21 November 2025 (Urgent measures regarding the Transition 5.0 Plan and the production of energy from renewable sources) entered into force – not yet converted into law at the time of filing the briefs – by which integrations and modifications were made to Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024.

In particular, the companies maintain that Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 repealed Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, including the regulation of areas suitable to host plants fueled by renewable energy sources (RES plants) and paragraph 1-bis introduced by Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024. However, Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, in Article 2, paragraph 1, letter h), provided for the insertion of Article 11-bis in Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, paragraph 2 of which substantially reproduced the same prohibition, inhibiting the installation of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules, including "basic" agrivoltaics, in agricultural areas.

The only novelty introduced by Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 would consist of the express reference to agrivoltaic plants, permitted provided that the modules are placed «in a position adequately elevated from the ground». Such formulation, however, would substantially confirm the prior general prohibition on photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules and basic agrivoltaic plants lacking the requirement of module elevation provided by the 2022 guidelines.

The subsequent legislation, therefore, would continue to exclusively permit advanced agrivoltaic plants, maintaining the prohibition both for traditional photovoltaic plants and for agrivoltaic plants not endowed with the aforementioned technical characteristics.

According to the companies, Article 11-bis, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, introduced by Article 2, paragraph 1, letter h), of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, would therefore have substantially confirmed the prohibition on constructing basic agrivoltaic plants in agricultural areas, barring limited exceptions. It follows that, despite the formal repeal of Article 20, paragraph 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, the censured legislation would continue to produce effects in the legal order, thereby persisting both the relevance of the questions of constitutional legitimacy in the pending proceedings before the Lazio Regional Administrative Court and the interest of the applicant companies.

6.2.– It is also highlighted the substantial identity between the repealed provision and the new legislation, maintaining that the referring judge's assessments regarding the existence of the companies' interest in a ruling by this Court would remain fully valid also with reference to the surviving legislation.

In this perspective, the case-law of this Court is invoked, which allows extending ex officio the constitutional review to a surviving provision that reproduces the same regulatory content of a preceding provision, since the original prohibition would continue to operate through the new legislative formulation, with a consequent persistent limitation on the construction of ground-mounted photovoltaic and basic agrivoltaic plants.

7.– In the sole proceeding registered under No. 137 of the 2025 register of orders, on 7 January 2026, Elettricità Futura also filed a brief, reiterating what was already highlighted in the appearance brief and requesting «the extension of the review of constitutional illegitimacy in relation to jus superveniens».

8.– On 24 March 2026, with reference respectively to the proceedings registered under numbers 137 and 139 of the 2025 register of orders, the President of the Council of Ministers filed two briefs, reiterating what was already deduced in the intervention brief and in the brief of 5 January 2026, and taking a position on Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, converted, with amendments, into Law No. 4 of 15 January 2026.

Following the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 (here and hereinafter cited in the text as converted), the regulation of suitable areas for the installation of plants from renewable sources is today contained in Article 11-bis of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024.

8.1.– The State Attorney General’s Office preliminarily states that, as regards agricultural areas, Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 «clarified the scope of the limitations already in force, confirming the prohibition on ground photovoltaics and the full admissibility of elevated configurations and agrivoltaics». More specifically, State defense maintains that «the new legislation – now contained in Article 11-bis of Legislative Decree No. 190/24 – substantially confirmed the framework already outlined by the censured provision, clarifying its scope of application with reference to agrivoltaic plants, whose admissibility in agricultural areas was already compatible with the prior system, and now finds explicit legislative enunciation».

8.2.– That being premised, the prerequisites for the automatic transfer of constitutional review to Article 2, paragraph 1, letter h), of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 would not exist, since the surviving norm is not limited to reproducing the previous one, but clarifies it, rendering explicit «the full admissibility of agrivoltaic plants with elevated modules, which in the prior system was already compatible with the ratio of the legislation but did not find express enunciation». Moreover, the new norm would also introduce verification requirements – the sworn declaration and the threshold of 80 percent of vendible gross production – which find no correspondence in the prior legislation.

8.3.– In the opinion of the President of the Council of Ministers, the regulatory survival would instead affect the relevance of the question in the main proceedings. The new legislation would introduce elements that the referring judge could not consider at the time of referral and that could directly impact the outcome of the main proceedings. In particular, the clause of express admissibility in general terms of agrivoltaic plants with non-ground-mounted modules, «with the sole constraint of multi-use […] whence the expression "adequately elevated”». The referring judge, therefore, should verify whether the projects forming the subject of the case are attributable to the regulation of agrivoltaic plants as now defined by law.

8.4.– It is likewise maintained that the legislation introduced by Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 moves on an autonomous plane compared to the technical one contained in the 2022 guidelines, which constitute an administrative guidance act aimed at defining requirements for access to specific incentive mechanisms, lacking a general defining function of the institution and which, moreover, are not cited by Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025. Using the 2022 guidelines as a binding interpretative parameter of the legislative provision would entail attributing to an administrative act an integrating function of the normative precept that does not belong to it.

The legislation introduced by Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 would contain a primary normative definition of an agrivoltaic plant and, above all, would directly identify the requirements in the presence of which such plants are always permitted even in agricultural areas.

In this context, the reference to modules «placed in a position adequately elevated from the ground» would not be accompanied by any referral to predetermined measures, nor to external technical classifications. The legislature chose to use an elastic notion, which would refer to a criterion of functional adequacy. The elevation of modules would be "adequate" insofar as it allows, in concrete terms, the continuity of agricultural activities proper to the installation site, according to what is required by the regulatory discipline itself. The correct reading of the provision would therefore require adhering to the regulatory data: the installation of agrivoltaic plants is permitted when the technical solutions adopted – the elevation of modules – prove suitable to guarantee the continuity of agricultural activity. Any different interpretation transforming such criterion into an implicit referral to external parameters would find no place in the current regulatory framework of plants from renewable energy sources (RES).

8.5.– As regards the normative definition of an agrivoltaic plant, introduced by Article 4, paragraph 1, letter f-bis), of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024 – letter added by Article 2, paragraph 1, letter c), of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 – and on the relationship with the subsequent Article 11-bis, paragraph 2, State defense states that the legislative definition does not configure the elevation of modules as a necessary and indispensable element of the agrivoltaic plant. The provision under Article 11-bis, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, however, invokes the definition of the preceding Article 4, specifying that, to be always authorizable, the plant must provide for the placement of modules in an elevated position from the ground, using a formulation that would clearly express a technical requirement. From this, however, no contradiction would derive between the two norms, which would operate on distinct and mutually complementary planes. The definition contained in Article 4 of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024 would identify the general traits of the institution, outlining what must be understood as an agrivoltaic plant. Article 11-bis of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, instead, would identify the conditions under which such plants are always permitted in agricultural areas, introducing a specific rule within the broader regime limiting the installation of plants with ground-mounted modules. In this context, the reference to modules «placed in a position adequately elevated from the ground» would not entail the transformation of elevation from an operational possibility (always permitted) into a defining element tout court of agrivoltaics, nor would it introduce a normative distinction between different types of plants. It would merely entail that one of the technical modalities (elevation from the ground) is always permitted. The systemic reading of the provisions would therefore require considering the definition of «agrivoltaic plant» in Article 4 of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024 and the discipline of the subsequent Article 11-bis as parts of the same regulatory framework, in which the legislature intended to privilege a functional criterion (adequate height) without identifying further rigid and predetermined technical parameters.

8.6.– It is also maintained that, differently from what paragraph 4, letter d), of Article 11-bis of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024 provides, the censured norm does not subtract land from the installation of RES plants, but limits itself to establishing the conditions under which a specific technology (modules elevated from the ground to an adequate extent) is always permitted in agricultural areas.

8.7.– The President of the Council of Ministers concludes that the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court should be declared inadmissible or in any case unfounded; alternatively, he insists on the restitution of the files to the referring judge for a re-examination of the persistence of relevance and non-manifest groundlessness of said questions in light of jus superveniens.

Considerato in diritto

9.− With the four non-final judgments indicated in the heading (reg. ord. Nos. 136, 137, 138, and 139 of 2025), the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, Section Three, raised, with reference to Articles 3, 9, 11, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, also in relation to the principles expressed by Directive 2018/2001/EU and Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action, as amended by Directive 2023/2413/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, as well as Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 of the European Parliament and of the Council, questions concerning the constitutional legitimacy of «Article 5, paragraphs 1 and 2, of Decree-Law No. 63/2024, as well as Article 2, paragraph 2, first period, of Legislative Decree No. 190/2024».

9.1.– The Lazio Regional Administrative Court states that it is called upon to rule on the challenge against the Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024, implementing the censured norms, brought by certain companies operating in the sector of energy production from renewable sources, particularly solar energy.

9.2.– The referring judge, on the facts, premises that among the initiatives of the applicant companies, currently under development, was, inter alia, the preparation of projects for the construction of agrivoltaic plants, including «non-advanced» ones, for which authorization procedures for construction and operation had yet to be initiated.

Having recalled the guidelines of 27 June 2022 on agrivoltaic plants, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court observes that, in light of the literal text and the purpose of Article 5 of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 (cited, as already indicated in the narrative, in the text resulting from the conversion law), the prohibition provided therein under paragraph 1 might not apply to advanced agrivoltaic plants. In such cases, in fact, the absence of ground-mounted modules would avoid the subtraction of agricultural land that the norm aims to prevent. However, it specifies that, in the concrete case, the applicant companies in the main proceedings presented projects for so-called non-advanced agrivoltaics, which would fall fully within the perimeter of the regulatory prohibition.

According to the referring judge, an interpretation excluding agrivoltaic plants altogether from the prohibition would conflict both with the literal data and with the ratio of the censured legislation. In particular, in his view, traditional agrivoltaic plants, characterized by panels placed on the ground, fall within the legislative prohibition provision.

9.3.– Having thus held in interpreting the censured legislation, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, doubting its compliance with the Constitution, raises certain questions of constitutional legitimacy.

9.4.– Said questions are, first of all, relevant. Since an interpretation of the censured norms favorable to the applicants is not practicable, the prohibition provided by Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 constitutes an obstacle to the realization of the projects presented by them and, in the absence of a declaration of constitutional illegitimacy, the challenges examined in the main proceedings should be dismissed.

9.5.– On the merits, the referring judge considers that the censured legislation conflicts with Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, as it violates the obligations deriving from European law, in particular the principle of the maximum dissemination of renewable energy. The prohibition could indeed hinder the achievement of installed capacity targets and compromise the European climate change adaptation strategy, endangering the achievement of climate neutrality. This also in consideration of the breadth of the prohibition itself, which extends to all agricultural lands, constituting over half of the national territory.

The norm would furthermore conflict with the principle of integration of environmental policies and the principle of proportionality, as it attributes absolute and aprioristic prevalence to the protection of agricultural land, without allowing a balancing with other constitutional interests, among which that of sustainable development. A violation of Articles 3 and 9 of the Constitution would consequently also derive.

Further profiles of unreasonableness emerge from the fact that the prohibition is based exclusively on the urbanistic classification of lands, without considering their concrete use or the quality of crops practiced thereon.

10.– By distinct briefs filed on 3 August 2025, the President of the Council of Ministers intervened in the four proceedings, requesting that the questions be declared inadmissible or unfounded.

11.– In the proceeding registered under No. 137 of the 2025 register of orders, Association Elettricità Futura and ERG Solar holding srl entered an appearance, and in the proceeding registered under No. 139 of the 2025 register of orders, FRV Italia srl entered an appearance, concluding for the upholding of the questions.

12.– As a preliminary matter, it must be noted that the referral orders are entirely overlapping. The joinder of the proceedings must therefore be ordered so that they may be decided with a single judgment, the relative questions of constitutional legitimacy having as their object the same provisions, putting forward analogous censures and invoking coincident parameters.

13.– Before proceeding to examine the merits, it is useful to briefly recall the European and national legislation concerning plants for the production of energy from renewable sources.

13.1.– One of the pillars of the European Union's environmental and economic development policy is the energy transition, which requires, inter alia, an increased production of energy from renewable sources.

The strategic direction aimed at increasing "clean" energy was initially defined by Directive 2001/77/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 September 2001 on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market, repealed by Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC, which laid down further regulation, in turn repealed by Directive 2018/2001/EU on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources.

The strategy concerning renewable sources received further impetus from this latter directive, in turn amended by Directive 2023/2413/EU, which in Italy was followed by Legislative Decree No. 5 of 9 January 2026, laying down «Implementation of Directive (EU) 2023/2413 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 October 2023 amending Directive (EU) 2018/2001, Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 and Directive 98/70/EC as regards the promotion of energy from renewable sources, and repealing Council Directive (EU) 2015/652».

Concurrently, with the Communication from the European Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions of 11 December 2019 (so-called European Green Deal), the Commission outlined a growth strategy aimed at transforming the Union into an economy that «will have no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use».

In this perspective, Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 was also enacted, Article 1 of which established the binding target of climate neutrality in the Union by 2050, as well as, by 2030, the internal reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (net of removals), identified by Article 4, paragraph 1 (and also recital 26), to the extent of at least 55 percent compared to 1990 levels.

More recently, Regulation (EU) 2024/1991 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2024 on nature restoration and amending Regulation (EU) 2022/869 was adopted for the «long-term and sustained recovery of biodiverse and resilient ecosystems across the Union’s terrestrial and marine areas […] through the restoration of degraded ecosystems» (Article 1, paragraph 1, letter a). Such regulation provides forms of preservation and improvement of various natural habitats.

Regarding the relationship between habitat protection and the construction of "green" plants, Article 6 (Renewable energy), paragraph 2, of the aforementioned regulation asserts the principle that «[i]n specific and duly justified circumstances, Member States may restrict the application of paragraph 1» – i.e., the provision that «the planning, construction and operation of plants for the production of energy from renewable sources […] shall be presumed to be of overriding public interest» – «to certain parts of their territory as well as to certain types of technologies or to projects with specific technical characteristics, in accordance with the priorities established in their national integrated energy and climate plans pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2018/1999».

Therefore, as this Court has already had occasion to affirm, «Regulation (EU) 2024/1991 concerns itself with clarifying that Member States may establish that the construction of certain plants impacting specific parts of their territory be excluded from the presumption of overriding public interest, thereby removing the relative favor» (judgment No. 184 of 2025 and previously, in the same terms, judgment No. 134 of 2025).

13.2.– For the purpose of achieving the objectives of combating climate change and using energy from renewable sources set at the European level up to 2030, our Country first approved Legislative Decree No. 387 of 29 December 2003 (Implementation of Directive 2001/77/EC on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market), subsequently amended by Legislative Decree No. 28 of 3 March 2011 (Implementation of Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC).

In particular, the regulation of authorization procedures was accompanied by specific guidelines approved by Ministerial Decree of 10 September 2010, functional to ensuring the correct landscape integration of RES plants, providing that regions could proceed to indicate areas and sites unsuitable for the installation of specific types of plants.

13.2.1.– Within this context, Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 was inserted, implementing the delegation conferred on the Government by Article 5 of Law No. 53 of 22 April 2021 (Delegation to the Government for the transposition of European directives and the implementation of other European Union acts – European Delegation Law 2019-2020).

Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 then inserted paragraph 1-bis into Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, which, before being repealed by Article 15, paragraph 1, and Annex D, letter p), of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, as amended by Article 2, paragraph 1, letter q), of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, provided as follows (in the text, therefore, in force at the time of bringing the main proceedings): «[t]he installation of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules, in zones classified as agricultural by current urban planning schemes, is permitted exclusively in the areas referred to in letters a), limited to interventions for modification, renovation, upgrading, or complete reconstruction of already installed plants, provided they do not entail an increase in the occupied area, c), including quarries already subject to environmental restoration and those with a completed cultivation plan not yet restored, as well as landfills or closed or restored landfill lots, c-bis), c-bis.1) and c-ter), numbers 2) and 3), of paragraph 8 of this article. The first period does not apply in the case of projects providing for photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules aimed at establishing a renewable energy community pursuant to Article 31 of this decree, as well as in the case of projects implementing other investment measures of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), approved by ECOFIN Council decision of 13 July 2021, as amended by ECOFIN Council decision of 8 December 2023, and of the Complementary Investment Plan to the NRRP (CIP) referred to in Article 1 of Decree-Law No. 59 of 6 May 2021, converted, with amendments, by Law No. 101 of 1 July 2021, or of projects necessary to achieve the objectives of the NRRP».

The subsequent paragraph 2 also establishes that «[i]ntervention 20, paragraph 1-bis, first period, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 8 November 2021, introduced by paragraph 1 of this article, does not apply to projects for which, at the date of entry into force of this decree, at least one of the administrative procedures, including environmental assessment procedures, necessary to obtain titles for the construction and operation of plants and related connected works has been initiated, or at least one of the titles themselves has been issued».

Both paragraph 1 and paragraph 2, as highlighted in the heading and narrative, are challenged by the referring judge.

In implementation of Article 20, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, as thus amended, Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024 established homogeneous principles and criteria for the identification by law, on the part of regions, of surfaces and areas suitable and unsuitable for the installation of RES plants (Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b).

For what is relevant to these proceedings, paragraph 2 of Article 1 of the Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024 provides that «[u]pon completion of the definition process referred to in this decree, the regions, ensuring the appropriate involvement of local authorities, shall identify on their respective territory: […]; d) areas where the installation of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules is prohibited: agricultural areas for which the prohibition of installing photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules applies pursuant to Article 20, paragraph 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 8 November 2021».

13.2.2.– More recently, Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024 intervened to reorganize the complex regulation of the matter.

In particular, Article 2, paragraph 2, first period (also challenged here), before being amended by Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, provided as follows: «[t]he interventions referred to in Article 1, paragraph 1, are considered to be of public utility, urgent and non-deferrable and may also be located in zones classified as agricultural by current urban planning schemes, in compliance with what is provided for in Article 20, paragraph 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 8 November 2021».

13.2.3.– Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, in Article 2, paragraph 1, letter h), introduced new legislation regarding the identification of suitable areas, through the insertion of Article 11-bis (Suitable areas on mainland) in Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, where, in paragraph 2, it is provided that: «[t]he installation of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules, in zones classified as agricultural by current urban planning schemes, is permitted exclusively in the areas referred to in paragraph 1, letters a), limited to interventions for modification, renovation, upgrading, or complete reconstruction of already installed plants, provided they do not entail an increase in the occupied area, c), d), e), f), l), numbers 1) and 2). The first period does not apply in the case of projects providing for photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules aimed at establishing a renewable energy community pursuant to Article 31 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, as well as in the case of projects implementing other investment measures of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) and of the Complementary Investment Plan to the NRRP (CIP) referred to in Article 1 of Decree-Law No. 59 of 6 May 2021, converted, with amendments, by Law No. 101 of 1 July 2021, or of projects necessary to achieve the objectives of the NRRP. The installation of agrivoltaic plants referred to in Article 4, paragraph 1, letter f-bis), through the use of modules placed in a position adequately elevated from the ground is in any case always permitted».

Article 2, paragraph 2, first period, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024 was also amended by Article 2, paragraph 1, letter a), of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, and, in the currently prevailing formulation, provides that «[t]he interventions referred to in Article 1, paragraph 1, are considered to be of public utility, urgent and non-deferrable and may also be located in zones classified as agricultural by current urban planning schemes, in compliance with what is provided for in Article 11-bis, paragraph 2».

13.2.4.– Lastly, upon conversion, to Article 2, paragraph 1, letter h), of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 (which, as stated, introduced Article 11-bis into Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024) the following periods were added: «For the installation of an agrivoltaic plant, the proponent shall be equipped with a sworn declaration drawn up by a qualified professional certifying that the plant is suitable to preserve at least 80 percent of vendible gross production. The declaration is attached to the project presented pursuant to Article 9 and in any case made available to the administration within the scope of control activities».

The regulation of criteria for identifying suitable areas for the installation of plants producing energy from renewable sources is therefore currently set forth by Article 11-bis of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, as introduced by Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025.

Regions are therefore required to identify, by law, suitable areas for the installation of renewable energy plants additional to those referred to in paragraph 1 of Article 11-bis of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024 on the basis of this new legislation and, in particular, in compliance with the principles and criteria established by the subsequent paragraph 4 and the objectives set by the further paragraph 5 (as provided by paragraph 3 of Article 11-bis), and no longer in implementation of Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 and the corresponding Ministerial Decree of 21 June 2024.

Having thus reconstructed the essential outlines of European and national legislation concerning agrivoltaic plants, the examination of the issue submitted to this Court can proceed.

14.– Preliminarily, the objection of inadmissibility raised by the State Attorney General’s Office must be examined.

According to the State defense, the questions raised by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court would be inadmissible, both because they are formulated in merely hypothetical terms and because they lack adequate factual support. The referring judge allegedly assumed, without concrete findings, that the prohibition on installing photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules on agricultural areas could compromise the achievement of European Union objectives regarding renewable energy.

The State Attorney General’s Office highlights how the referring RAC omitted to consider that agricultural areas are not entirely removed from photovoltaic use, as the possibility of constructing advanced agrivoltaic plants remains, which are compatible with the concurrent agricultural exploitation of land and not precluded by the censured legislation.

The objection is unfounded.

Indeed, in the present case, the referring judge, besides analytically setting forth the arguments supporting the non-manifest groundlessness of the challenges, identified specifically and with sufficient determinateness the reasons for the deemed constitutional illegitimacy of the censured norms, referring, inter alia, to the consistent case-law of this Court on the principle of the maximum dissemination of renewable energy production plants (judgments No. 121 and No. 77 of 2022, No. 106 of 2020, No. 286 of 2019, No. 69 of 2018, No. 13 of 2014, and No. 44 of 2011). The contours of the challenges are clear and each of the non-final referral judgments is adequately reasoned regarding the reasons for the alleged conflict with each of the invoked constitutional parameters. Nor are the motivational deficiencies highlighted by the State Attorney General’s Office such as to compromise the argumentative path followed by the referring judge (judgments No. 72 of 2026 and No. 202 of 2023).

More precisely, the omitted concrete demonstration of the effective risk of failing to achieve the European Union's objectives regarding the production of energy from renewable sources, assertively connected to the censured provisions, constitutes a question pertaining to the merits of the controversy.

15.– Before proceeding to examine the merits, the application filed by the defense of the President of the Council of Ministers seeking the restitution of the files to the referring judge, so that the latter may re-evaluate the persisting relevance and non-manifest groundlessness of the raised questions in light of jus superveniens, must be addressed.

Such application cannot be granted.

It must be noted that the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 and the repeal of the censured norm do not produce effects on these constitutional legitimacy proceedings.

On this point, this Court has repeatedly highlighted that when the main proceedings concern the challenge of an act, «repeal has no effect on the […] constitutional review proceedings, since, by reason of the principle tempus regit actum, the referring judge is bound to carry out the assessment [of the act they are called upon to review] in light of the legislation […] in force at the time of its adoption» (judgment No. 257 of 2017; on this point also judgment No. 61 of 2012).

After all, «to render incidental questions admissible, it is sufficient that the challenged norm be applicable in the proceedings a quibus» (judgment No. 46 of 2014).

Well then: precisely in the proceedings a quibus, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court will in any case be bound to apply Article 20, paragraph 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, having to review the legitimacy of a ministerial decree adopted in implementation thereof, so that no doubt subsists on the persistence of the requirement of relevance.

Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, moreover, does not bear an interpretative or otherwise retroactive norm.

Indeed, Article 2, paragraph 1-bis, of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 establishes that: «[t]he provisions referred to in Articles 11-bis, paragraph 1, and 11-quater of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 25 November 2024, introduced by letter h) of paragraph 1 of this article, shall not apply to procedures ongoing at the date of entry into force of this decree, which shall continue to be carried out pursuant to the prior legislation. […] For the purposes of the first period, ongoing procedures shall mean those for authorization or licensing, including environmental assessment procedures, for which the completeness check of the documentation presented in support of the project has been completed at the date of entry into force of this decree».

Now, such transitional discipline concerns "procedures", but, in the proceedings pending before the referring judge, the object of contestation is not the acts of a "procedure", but rather a ministerial decree, which – according to private parties – precluded the very possibility of initiating it. The principle tempus regit actum, recalled above, therefore finds full application.

Consequently, for this profile, the prerequisites for a restitution of the files to the referring judge do not exist, given that «the review of the legitimacy of administrative acts is subject to the principle of tempus regit actum and must therefore be conducted on the basis of the rules in force at the time of their adoption» (order No. 30 of 2024; in the same sense, among many, judgments No. 172 of 2024, No. 180 of 2022, No. 227 of 2021, No. 170, No. 109, and No. 7 of 2019, No. 240 of 2018, No. 281, No. 245, No. 203, No. 49, and No. 30 of 2016; order No. 76 of 2018).

As regards non-manifest groundlessness, the new legislation does not conform to the approach deemed most correct by the referring judge, who considers it necessary to exclude from the prohibition all agrivoltaic plants, including those with ground-mounted panels. On the contrary, it circumscribes the exemption solely to plants with modules «placed in a position adequately elevated from the ground», further restricts agricultural areas usable for photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules, and introduces specific verification burdens regarding the preservation of agricultural productivity. It follows that the detrimental effect complained of by private parties not only persists, but if anything is increased, in certain profiles, by the entry into force of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025.

On this point, this Court has affirmed that «not every new provision that modifies, integrates, or otherwise impacts the one forming the object of the incidental constitutional review proceedings requires a new assessment of the persisting existence of the admissibility prerequisites of the question and specifically of its relevance and the non-manifest groundlessness of the doubts of constitutional legitimacy expressed by the referring judge. This Court may indeed itself hold that the new provision does not alter the censured norm at all regarding the part subject to challenges of constitutional legitimacy, or that it modifies it in marginal aspects or to a non-significant extent, such that the referring judge's assessments in terms of relevance and non-manifest groundlessness of the question persist», clarifying likewise that «the admissibility condition of the incidental proceedings persists […] not only where the new provision does not exclude the application, ratione temporis, of the censured provision (ex plurimis, judgment No. 257 of 2017), but also where the former impacts the latter in the sense of aggravating its denounced vices of constitutional legitimacy» (judgment No. 125 of 2018; on this point also judgments No. 177 and No. 33 of 2018).

16.– Nor do the prerequisites exist for transferring the quaestio onto the legislation constituting jus superveniens, requested by private parties. The case-law of this Court, indeed, is steadfast in affirming that such transfer postulates not only that the modifications are not satisfactory, but also that they are of a marginal character (judgment No. 13 of 2026), and such prerequisites do not exist in the present case, since the new legislation, as already highlighted, introduces significant novelties, such as the greater restriction of agricultural areas usable for photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules and the introduction of specific verification burdens regarding the preservation of agricultural productivity.

17.– On the merits, in primis, the referring judge raises questions concerning the constitutional legitimacy of Article 5, paragraphs 1 and 2, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 and Article 2, paragraph 2, first period, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, for alleged violation of Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, «also in relation to the principles expressed by Directive (EU) 2018/2001 and Regulation (EU) 2018/1999», as amended by Directive 2023/2413/EU, as well as Regulation (EU) 2021/1119, assuming that the prohibition provided therein hinders the achievement of energy efficiency objectives.

The question is unfounded.

It must be premised that the legislation subject to challenge prohibits the installation, in areas classified as agricultural by urban planning schemes, exclusively of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules.

On this point, it must also be highlighted that photovoltaic plants constitute a general category within which agrivoltaic plants are inscribed, configuring themselves as a species of that broader genus.

This approach finds confirmation today in Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, which, in Article 2, paragraph 1, letter c), defined, through the insertion of letter f-bis) into Article 4, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, the agrivoltaic plant as a «photovoltaic plant that preserves the continuity of crop and pastoral activities on the installation site», with the specification that «[i]n order to guarantee the continuity of crop and pastoral activities, the plant may provide for the rotation of modules placed in a position elevated from the ground and the application of digital and precision agriculture tools».

Moreover, already Article 65, paragraph 1-quater, of Decree-Law No. 1 of 2012, as converted, albeit solely for the purpose of admitting them to public funding, defined agrivoltaic plants as plants adopting «innovative integrative solutions with mounting of modules elevated from the ground, also providing for the rotation of the modules themselves, in any case in such a way as not to compromise the continuity of agricultural cultivation and pastoral activities, also allowing the application of digital and precision agriculture tools».

The guidelines of 27 June 2022 of the Ministry for Ecological Transition as well, at Article 1.1, letter d), define the agrivoltaic plant as a «photovoltaic plant that adopts solutions aimed at preserving the continuity of agricultural cultivation and pastoral activities on the installation site».

Well then: the referring judge omits to consider that the censured norm does not preclude in zones classified as agricultural by current urban planning schemes the installation of all plants for the production of energy from solar sources, but only that of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules. There remains instead permitted, as the Lazio RAC itself recognizes in its case-law, the construction of agrivoltaic plants «with modules not mounted on the ground», which preserve the continuity of crop and pastoral activities on the installation site (on this point, Lazio Regional Administrative Court, Section Three, judgment of 15 May 2025, No. 9271).

The law does not offer a precise definition of a plant «with ground-mounted modules», so it is up to the administration and the judge to clarify the content of the normative syntagm, obviously within the limits of the common sense of words (as this Court clarified in judgment No. 10 of 2026, even generic legislative expressions nevertheless have a non-limited scope of possible meanings). In the relative indeterminacy of the structural definition, moreover, the clarity of the normative indication on the functional plane assists, given that Chapter I in which Article 5 of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 is placed is entitled «Interventions for the protection of enterprises in the agri-food sector […]» and the title of Article 5 itself is «Provisions aimed at limiting the use of agricultural land», thus underlying the need to protect the interest aimed at safeguarding the continuity of crop and pastoral activities. It is furthermore not inappropriate to note that these functional indications are now confirmed by Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, which, indeed, permits the installation of agrivoltaic plants «through the use of modules placed in a position adequately elevated from the ground» (Article 2, paragraph 1, letter h), with the specification that agrivoltaic plants are precisely understood as photovoltaic plants that preserve «the continuity of crop and pastoral activities on the installation site» (Article 2, paragraph 1, letter c).

To this is added that Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, amended by Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024, applicable ratione temporis, nonetheless permitted the installation of ground-mounted plants in specific areas expressly identified by the legislature, such as: i) sites where plants of the same source are already installed, limited to interventions for modification, renovation, upgrading, or complete reconstruction, provided they do not entail an increase in the occupied area (paragraph 1-bis in combination with paragraph 8, letter a); ii) disused quarries and mines, not recovered or abandoned or in conditions of environmental degradation, or portions of quarries and mines not susceptible to further exploitation, including quarries already subject to environmental restoration and those with a completed cultivation plan not yet restored, as well as landfills or closed or restored landfill lots (paragraph 1-bis in combination with paragraph 8, letter c); iii) sites and plants available to companies of the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane group, railway infrastructure managers, motorway concessionaire companies, and airport management companies within airport boundaries, including those within the perimeter of pertinence of airports of minor islands referred to in Annex 1 to the Decree of the Minister of Economic Development of 14 February 2017, without prejudice to the necessary technical verifications by the Italian Civil Aviation Authority (paragraph 8, letters c-bis and c-bis.1); iv) areas internal to industrial plants and establishments, as well as areas classified as agricultural enclosed within a perimeter whose points are no more than 500 meters from the same plant or establishment (paragraph 8, letter c-ter, number 2); v) areas adjacent to the motorway network within a distance not exceeding 300 meters (paragraph 8, letter c-ter, number 3).

Furthermore, paragraph 1-bis of Article 20 of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, introduced by the censured Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024, clarifies that the aforementioned prohibition does not apply «in the case of projects providing for photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules aimed at establishing a renewable energy community pursuant to Article 31 of this decree, as well as in the case of projects implementing other investment measures of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), approved by ECOFIN Council decision of 13 July 2021, as amended by ECOFIN Council decision of 8 December 2023, and of the Complementary Investment Plan to the NRRP (CIP) referred to in Article 1 of Decree-Law No. 59 of 6 May 2021, converted, with amendments, by Law No. 101 of 1 July 2021, or of projects necessary to achieve the objectives of the NRRP».

Lastly, Article 5, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 introduces a safeguard clause in favor of all «projects for which, at the date of entry into force of this decree, at least one of the administrative procedures, including environmental assessment procedures, necessary to obtain titles for the construction and operation of plants and related connected works has been initiated, or at least one of the titles themselves has been issued».

Well then: in light of the complex system of derogations and exceptions outlined by the legislature, the referring judge limits himself to asserting that «the generality of lands classified as agricultural (about half of the surface of the Country) is precluded from any intervention installing photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules that does not consist of mere renovation/modification/reconstruction, with the consequent preclusion to the use of new agricultural land», that «[t]he prohibition does not extend – by express provision – solely to projects implementing measures financed with the NRRP or CIP, which however do not encompass all projects necessary to achieve the targets provided by the NIECP […]» and that «[a]lready this circumstance highlights that a prohibition of such scope risks seriously jeopardizing the achievement of such objectives, insofar as it subtracts a large portion of territory from any possible use of photovoltaic technology without the effects being predictable regarding the possibility of respecting the trajectories established concerning the share of energy from renewable sources».

Consequently, no reasoning is found capable of demonstrating that the possibilities of using agricultural land for solar energy production – ranging from agrivoltaic plants «with modules not mounted on the ground», permitted in principle on agricultural areas, up to the further fattispecie provided for by the censured legislation – are so scant as to compromise the achievement of European objectives regarding renewable energy.

18.– The challenge concerning the violation of Article 9 of the Constitution, for alleged conflict with the principle of integration of protections under Article 11 TFEU and Article 37 of the Charter of Nice (norms, moreover, not invoked, as interposing norms, in the operative part) and with the protection of environmental goods (indeed closely linked to the preceding one) also proves unfounded.

As highlighted by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, the increase in energy production from renewable sources constitutes one of the pillars of the complex of measures necessary for the reduction of harmful emissions and for the fulfillment of obligations deriving from the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and other commitments undertaken at the European level regarding the containment of greenhouse gas emissions. Nonetheless, the European Union itself, through the Communication from the European Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions of 17 November 2021 (EU Soil Strategy for 2030. Healthy soils for people, nature, climate), has parallelly affirmed the need to ensure adequate protection of agricultural land, promoting the reduction of land consumption by 2050 and sustainable land use, in consideration of its significance for food security, biodiversity, and combating climate change.

Achieving a balance between the expansion of renewable energy and the safeguarding of agricultural land implies the adoption of accurate territorial planning as well as the use of compatible technologies, which allow combining the production of energy from renewable sources with the continuity of the agricultural use of the territory.

Agricultural land represents, in fact, an increasingly scarce resource.

In this perspective, Directive (EU) 2025/2360 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 November 2025 on soil monitoring and resilience, which constitutes the European Union's regulatory framework specifically dedicated to soil health, deserves to be recalled. It falls within the context of the European Green Deal, pursuing the objective of ensuring that, by 2050, all European soils are in good health condition.

More specifically, recitals 1 and 2 of Directive 2025/2360 state: «[s]oil is a vital, finite and considered non-renewable and irreplaceable resource on a human time scale. It is crucial for the economy, the environment and society as a whole. Healthy soils mean soils presenting good chemical, biological and physical conditions and are therefore capable of providing vital ecosystem services to humans and the environment, such as safe, nutritious and sufficient food, biomass, clean water, nutrient cycling, carbon storage and habitats for biodiversity. Soils are also essential to ensure food security. However, it is estimated that 60-70 % of Union soils are degraded and continue to deteriorate».

The directive is therefore aimed, inter alia, at promoting the sustainable management of soil, identifying practices to be encouraged and those to be avoided in order to prevent degradation and foster the preservation of biodiversity.

The protection of soil and agricultural production and the promotion of renewable energy thus configure themselves as mutually interdependent and closely connected policies.

Moreover, the arguments developed by the referring judge, according to which the norm prohibiting the installation of photovoltaic plants with ground-mounted modules conflicts with the European principles of maximizing the production of energy from renewable sources, do not consider the complexity of the matter and the plurality of goods, all of constitutional rank, involved in the regulatory vicenda subject to challenge.

First of all, among the indicators of impermeabilization and land consumption, the directive contemplates, as an optional indicator, precisely the use of land for purposes connected with renewable energy (Annex I, Part D, of Directive 2025/2360/EU).

Furthermore, Article 1 of Directive 2025/2360/EU highlights that its aims are: i) to reduce soil contamination to levels no longer considered harmful to human health and the environment; ii) to constantly improve soil health in the Union, and iii) to maintain soils in healthy conditions and prevent and address all aspects of soil degradation, in order to achieve healthy soils by 2050, so that they can: «provide multiple ecosystem services on a scale sufficient to meet environmental, social and economic needs», «prevent and mitigate the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss», and «increase resilience in defense against natural disasters and in terms of food security».

On the plane of domestic law, then, as will be discussed in subsequent point 19, Article 9 of the Constitution defines an extremely broad perimeter of protection, embracing multiple constitutional interests and rights, directly or indirectly traceable to the environmental good, and, as the case-law of this Court has affirmed, no constitutional right or good receives protection in absolute terms, being rather subject to limits functional to the necessary balancing with the multiplicity of other rights and interests of equal level, since the protection of rights must be ensured in a systemic and unitary perspective, not in a fragmentary way (judgment No. 85 of 2013).

The reconciliation between the various constitutionally relevant interests and goods in the matter is therefore extremely complex and involves economic, political, and social appraisals that are reserved to the legislature in the exercise of the balancing activity entrusted to it, sometimes even within the same interest (consider, for example, that the interest in the country's economic autonomy concerns both energy and agricultural goods, thus extreme caution is required in evaluating the destination of land to the production of one or the other).

Legislative appraisals may moreover also change in light of the concrete performance of the various disciplines dictated from time to time (as demonstrated by the regulatory evolution described in point 13) and the changing contextual conditions (climatic, scientific, economic, etc.).

The legislative appraisals submitted here to the review of this Court remain within the threshold of reasonableness.

Article 5 of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 was indeed introduced with the purpose of containing, also for landscape and environmental reasons, the expansion of ground-mounted photovoltaic plants, which could be installed on agricultural soils also for reasons of economic and logistic convenience.

As observed by the State Attorney General’s Office, such dynamics entail significant effects, such as the irreversible occupation of lands, the fragmentation of the agrarian landscape, the reduction of biodiversity, as well as the potential emergence of conflicts with regional and local agricultural and environmental planning instruments.

Now, Article 9 of the Constitution, even in its current formulation, accords protection not only to «the environment, biodiversity and ecosystems», but also to the landscape.

In particular, this Court has had occasion to affirm that «even before the reform of Title V of Part Two of the Constitution, the concept of landscape indicates, first of all, the morphology of the territory, meaning the environment in its visual aspect», specifying that «for this […] Article 9 of the Constitution enshrined the fundamental principle of the "protection of the landscape” without any other specification» and that «[i]n essence, the very aspect of the territory, for the environmental and cultural contents it contains, is in itself a constitutional value» (judgment No. 367 of 2007).

The interest in constructing RES energy plants cannot therefore be considered always automatically prevailing over that of protecting the landscape and cultivations. And "landscape" is, typically, also the agrarian landscape.

After all, the case-law of this Court (ex multis, judgments No. 184 of 2025, No. 121 and No. 77 of 2022, No. 106 of 2020, and No. 286 of 2019) – in noting that the fundamental principle of the maximum dissemination of renewable energy sources, which inspires EU legislation, finds implementation in the general usability of all lands for the installation of relative plants – has concurrently admitted the legitimacy of exceptions «inspired by the protection of other constitutionally protected interests» (judgments No. 13 of 2014 and No. 224 of 2012).

The censured norm is precisely aimed at achieving a non-manifestly unreasonable balancing between interests of equal constitutional standing, all furthermore traceable, albeit for different profiles, also to the environmental good (the protection of the agricultural landscape, crops, soil, biodiversity, and the ecological transition).

19.– The question of constitutional legitimacy raised with reference to Article 3 of the Constitution, for alleged violation of the principle of proportionality, must likewise be deemed unfounded in light of the considerations already developed in relation to the parameter of Article 9 of the Constitution.

Notwithstanding what has been said regarding the particular complexity of the necessary balances and – therefore – the limits of this Court's review, it is well known that the principle of proportionality requires the public decision-maker to identify, among the various abstractly practicable solutions, the one suitable and necessary for the pursuit of legitimate aims, as well as the least restrictive with respect to the other interests and rights involved.

On this point, this Court has affirmed that the proportionality review «requires […] verifying that the balancing of constitutionally relevant interests has not been achieved in ways such as to determine the sacrifice or compression of one of them to an excessive extent and therefore incompatible with the constitutional dictates», specifying that «[s]uch judgment must take place "through weighings relating to the proportionality of the means chosen by the legislature in its indisputable discretion with respect to the objective needs to be satisfied or the purposes it intends to pursue, taking into account the circumstances and limitations concretely existing” (judgment No. 1130 of 1988)» (emphasis added) and that «[t]he proportionality test […] requires evaluating whether the norm subject to review, with the measures and modalities of application established, is necessary and suitable for achieving legitimately pursued objectives, inasmuch as, among multiple appropriate measures, it prescribes the least restrictive of the rights compared and establishes burdens that are not disproportionate with respect to the pursuit of said objectives» (judgment No. 1 of 2014 and, in the same sense, most recently, extensively, judgment No. 10 of 2026).

The review of compliance with the principle of proportionality is therefore based on the evaluation of three elements: suitability, necessity, and proportionality in the strict sense (or adequacy).

Well then: the censured norms do not conflict with the principle of proportionality, when considering that the prohibition contained in Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024, taking into account the literal text and the purpose of the norm, does not apply to agrivoltaic plants with modules not mounted on the ground, for which, precisely because said modules have such a characteristic, the subtraction of agricultural land within the terms that the norm intends to counter does not occur.

Moreover, as already recalled (point 17), Article 20, paragraph 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 provides various derogations and exceptions to the censured norm.

Consequently, the prohibition introduced with Article 5, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 2024 does not at all resolve into an absolute preclusion to the construction of solar energy production plants, but is limited to excluding the use of a technology that is particularly burdensome in terms of land consumption.

Unlike what was held by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, the solution provided by the national legislature therefore represents the fruit of a non-unreasonable balancing between different interests, aimed at reconciling agricultural activity with solar energy production.

The norm consequently withstands the proportionality test: the choice is suitable, as it operates on the scarce good – land – that is at stake here; it is necessary, inasmuch as the objective of preserving agricultural production could not be pursued if ground-mounted modules were permitted; it is proportionate in the strict sense, as it imposes a tolerable sacrifice for private parties, given that they can pursue their entrepreneurial objectives simply by investing in agrivoltaic plants with modules not mounted on the ground.

19.1.– Lastly, the challenge of unreasonableness is also unfounded where the referring judge represents the circumstance that the prohibition thus introduced would be operational on the simple basis of the classification of the areas concerned as agricultural according to urban planning schemes, without their concrete use or usability for such purposes being relevant.

Preliminarily, it must be deemed significant that, although not applicable in the main proceedings by virtue of the aforementioned principle tempus regit actum, Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025 confirmed the interest in protecting the agricultural use of soils, establishing, in the context of Article 2, paragraph 1-bis, that «[i]n cases of high agricultural value of the area, the territorially competent region or autonomous province may resort to the opposition remedy referred to in Article 14-quinquies of Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990».

Furthermore, as regards more properly the agricultural destination of soils, it must be noted that, pursuant to Article 2 of the Decree of the Minister for Public Works, in concert with the Minister for the Interior, of 2 April 1968, No. 1444 (Mandatory limits on building density, height, distance between buildings and maximum ratios between spaces intended for residential and productive settlements and public spaces or reserved for collective activities, public greenery or parking to be observed for the formation of new urban planning instruments or the revision of existing ones, pursuant to Article 17 of Law No. 765 of 6 August 1967), «[t]he following are considered homogeneous territorial zones, pursuant to and for the purposes of Article 17 of Law No. 765 of 6 August 1967: […] E) parts of the territory intended for agricultural uses, excluding those in which – while maintaining their agricultural character – the subdivision of properties requires settlements to be considered as zones C)».

Administrative case-law has consistently recognized Ministerial Decree No. 1444 of 1968 as having a foundation in Law No. 765 of 6 August 1967 (Amendments and additions to urban planning law No. 1150 of 17 August 1942) (Council of State, Section Six, order of 1 March 2019, No. 1431; Section Four, order of 17 March 2022, No. 1949).

Nonetheless, the same case-law has progressively taken note of the significant functional evolution imparted by the public administration to the classification of agricultural areas – or «zone E», according to the typology of Ministerial Decree No. 1444 of 1968 itself – recognizing that such urbanistic destination has by now assumed further and more articulated valences than the recognition of the traditional agricultural vocation of the territory.

In particular, the Council of State observed: «[w]ith respect to the narrow acceptation of agricultural zone deriving from Article 2 of the Ministerial Decree of 1968, a concept of "agricultural area" has developed – recte, of what can correctly be classified as such – to whose declination case-law has contributed significantly», specifying that «in urban planning, the relative destination does not even necessarily presuppose the corresponding "vocation" of the area, understood in its literal acceptation» and that «[t]his means that the classification of land in an "E1" zone does not presuppose that it is concretely used for typical crops or that it already possesses all the characteristics provided by law» (emphasis added) (Council of State, Section Two, judgment of 31 July 2023, No. 7407).

According to administrative case-law, therefore, the destination as an agricultural zone does not necessarily impose a positive obligation of cultivation, but primarily performs a "negative" function: that of avoiding the settlement of new residential or productive works not connected with agriculture. Classification as an agricultural zone is thus today an instrument of territorial planning that the administration uses to preserve the state of places and orient urban development, independently of the effective agricultural use of the soil at a given moment.

Nonetheless, the function concretely attributed by the local administration to urbanistic classification as an "agricultural area" cannot alter the notion under Article 2 of Ministerial Decree No. 1444 of 1968, according to which «zone E» areas are parts of the territory intended for agricultural uses.

Well then, requirements of legal certainty mandate making reference to classifications of a legal nature, advising against anchoring normative prescriptions to mere factual elements such as the "unusability" or "degradation" of an area which, by their very nature, integrate contingent, transitory, and in any case debatable conditions.

The classification of land, indeed, determines a legal condition suitable to express not only the current aptitude of the estate, but also its functional potential.

The circumstance that degraded lands or those temporarily unused for agricultural purposes may exist, as a mere factual and contingent datum, does not allow disregarding the urbanistic vocation imparted to the estate by reason of its planning destination. It remains however understood that, if the concrete agricultural utilization of the area is not relevant, its abstract usability as such is relevant.

Finally, the challenge according to which the prohibition would be indiscriminate cannot be granted, whereas it should focus on the quality and importance of the crops practiced, considering non-sacrificable only agricultural areas affected by high-quality agro-food productions, such as organic productions, «PDO, PGI, TSG, DOC, DOCG» productions, traditional productions and/or of particular value with respect to the landscape and cultural context.

Such an assumption conflicts, indeed, with the relevance of the aforementioned agricultural potential of the land (not definitively transformed), which, by effect of urbanistic classification, could also be destined in the future to high-quality crops, a faculty that would be prejudiced by generalized use of agrivoltaics with ground-mounted modules. Furthermore, the agricultural value protected by the censured norm is not only that inherent in high-quality crops, but is also that linked to traditional crops and uses of land for agricultural purposes.

In light of the considerations set forth, the question concerning the violation of Article 3 of the Constitution must therefore also be declared unfounded.

on those grounds

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

having joined the proceedings,

declares unfounded the questions concerning the constitutional legitimacy of Article 5, paragraphs 1 and 2, of Decree-Law No. 63 of 15 May 2024 (Urgent provisions for agricultural, fisheries and aquaculture enterprises, as well as for enterprises of national strategic interest), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 101 of 12 July 2024, and of Article 2, paragraph 2, first period, of Legislative Decree No. 190 of 25 November 2024, laying down «Regulations on administrative regimes for the production of energy from renewable sources, in implementation of Article 26, paragraphs 4 and 5, letters b) and d), of Law No. 118 of 5 August 2022», raised – with reference to Articles 3, 9, 11, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, also in relation to the principles expressed by Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action, amending Regulations (EC) No 663/2009 and (EC) No 715/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, Directives 94/22/EC, 98/70/EC, 2009/31/EC, 2009/73/EC, 2010/31/EU, 2012/27/EU and 2013/30/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, Council Directives 2009/119/EC and (EU) 2015/652 and repealing Regulation (EU) No 525/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, as amended by Directive (EU) 2023/2413 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 October 2023 amending Directive (EU) 2018/2001, Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 and Directive 98/70/EC as regards the promotion of energy from renewable sources, and repealing Council Directive (EU) 2015/652, as well as Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 June 2021 establishing the framework for achieving climate neutrality and amending Regulations (EC) No 401/2009 and (EU) 2018/1999 («European Climate Law») – by the Regional Administrative Court for Lazio, Section Three, with the non-final judgments indicated in the heading.

Thus decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on 14 April 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Massimo LUCIANI, Rapporteur

Igor DI BERNARDINI, Registrar

Filed in the Registry on 16 July 2026