JUDGMENT NO. 144

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, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Massimo LUCIANI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has delivered the following

JUDGMENT

in proceedings concerning the review of constitutionality of Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Autonomous Region of Sardinia Law No. 31 of November 6, 2025, entitled «Amendments to Article 1 and Schedule G of Regional Law No. 20 of December 5, 2024 (Urgent measures for the identification of suitable and unsuitable areas and surfaces for the installation and promotion of renewable energy source (RES) plants and for the simplification of authorization procedures)», brought by the President of the Council of Ministers, by means of an appeal served on January 12, 2026, filed with the registry on January 13, 2026, registered under no. 1 of the appeals register for 2026 and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic No. 5, 1st special series, for the year 2026.

Having regard to the appearance in court of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia;

having heard Judge Rapporteur Angelo Buscema at the public hearing of June 9, 2026;

having heard State Counsel Giammario Rocchitta for the President of the Council of Ministers and Attorney Floriana Isola for the Autonomous Region of Sardinia;

having deliberated in chambers on June 10, 2026.

The Law in Fact

1.– By an appeal filed on January 13, 2026, and registered under no. 1 reg. app. of 2026, the President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Attorney General's Office, brought proceedings concerning the constitutionality of Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Autonomous Region of Sardinia Law No. 31 of November 6, 2025, entitled «Amendments to Article 1 and Schedule G of Regional Law No. 20 of December 5, 2024 (Urgent measures for the identification of suitable and unsuitable areas and surfaces for the installation and promotion of renewable energy source (RES) plants and for the simplification of authorization procedures)».

The challenged provision introduces, after paragraph 7 of Article 1 of Sardinian Regional Law No. 20 of 2024, a new paragraph 7-bis, which provides that the Region, by means of a regulation to be adopted within ninety days from the entry into force of the law itself, shall identify directives for the correct application of the regulations concerning plants utilizing renewable sources located in areas not included among those classified as suitable. The same provision establishes that, pending the adoption of the aforementioned regulation, no course may be given to applications for authorization, even if submitted prior to the entry into force of the law, and that no new applications for authorization for RES plants located in areas not included among the suitable areas may be submitted, with the exception of those aimed at self-consumption or the service of energy communities.

According to the appellant, this regulation would determine a generalized suspension of authorization procedures relating to renewable energy plants in unsuitable areas, with the sole exceptions expressly contemplated by the provision, affecting both pending and future procedures, and making the resumption of administrative activity conditional upon the adoption of a regional regulatory act.

1.1.– The President of the Council of Ministers alleges, first, the violation of Article 117, third paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to the fundamental principles established by state legislation in the matter of «national production, transport and distribution of energy», and specifically by Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of November 8, 2021, entitled «Implementation of Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 11, 2018, on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources» – now: «Implementation of Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 11, 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 October 18, 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» –, which prohibits the introduction of moratoria or suspensions of authorization procedures pending the identification of suitable areas.

According to the appellant, Articles 3 and 4, letter e), of Constitutional Law No. 3 of February 26, 1948 (Special Statute for Sardinia), as well as Article 10 of Constitutional Law No. 3 of October 18, 2001 (Amendments to Title V of Part Two of the Constitution), would also be violated due to the introduction of regulations contrary to the principles expressed by the state legislature in the aforementioned legislation.

The challenged regional law intervenes in a sphere in which the Autonomous Region of Sardinia holds, pursuant to Article 4, letter e), of the special statute, legislative competence in the matter of «production and distribution of electric power»; however, such legislative competence is subject to the limits established by Articles 3 and 4 of the statute itself, namely compliance with the Constitution, the principles of the legal order of the State, international obligations and national interests, as well as the fundamental norms of economic and social reforms and the principles established by state legislation.

The challenged regional provision entails an automatic and generalized suspension of administrative action concerning authorization procedures, operating not as ordinary procedural regulation or case-by-case modulation, but as an outright ex lege halt to the authorization process for an entire category of interventions, pending the adoption of a second-tier regional act.

The regional choice, thus structured, directly impacts the administrative regimes relating to the construction of renewable energy plants which the State, through its guiding legislation, has instead shaped uniformly throughout the national territory by reason of the unitary relevance of the energy sector and the European energy policy objectives incumbent upon the state legal order as a whole.

In particular, the relevant state legislation – in outlining the framework of administrative regimes and criteria governing the identification of areas and the authorization process for renewable energy plants – expresses binding principles for the regions. In this sense, the principle affirmed by Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 assumes relevance as an interposed parameter, according to which, pending the identification of suitable areas, moratoria or suspensions of authorization procedures may not be ordered.

The challenged regional provision runs counter to the aforementioned principle, since it explicitly introduces a suspension of authorization procedures «until the issuance of a regional regulation, and thus precisely during the period in which state legislation requires procedural continuity and uniformity of administrative regimes, preventing the authorization process from being blocked as a result of unilateral regional choices».

The regional regulations are therefore not limited to modulating the exercise of administrative functions according to procedural criteria, but impact by arresting, potentially sine die, the authorization process, with the consequence that the administration is precluded from exercising any power of assessment regarding the concrete authorizability of the plant located in an unsuitable area, thereby eluding the principle of continuity desired by the state legislature in transitional phases.

Nor does the provision of a ninety-day term for the adoption of the regulation serve to exclude the unconstitutionality of the challenged provision: the regional prohibition operates in fact immediately and automatically, without any individual assessment, and without the regional law providing mechanisms suitable for neutralizing the effects of the suspension in the event of non-compliance with the term, such that the procedural halt configures as a full and self-sufficient legal effect.

Moreover, the regional regulations are set against a backdrop in which this Court has already scrutinized regional measures featuring a similar structure of generalized blocking of FER plant authorization procedures. In particular, the appellant refers to Judgment No. 28 of 2025, which declared the unconstitutionality of Autonomous Region of Sardinia Law No. 5 of July 3, 2024 (Urgent measures for the safeguarding of the landscape and landscape-environmental assets), which had introduced a mechanism of generalized suspension of authorization procedures relating to FER plants, linking their resumption to the adoption of future regional regulations on suitable areas, as well as to Judgment No. 184 of 2025, which clarified the meaning and function of the notion of "suitable areas”, affirming that the classification of an area as suitable does not constitute an exclusive or preclusive condition for the construction of plants powered by renewable sources, but defines an instrument for accelerating authorization procedures through the application of simplified and faster procedural pathways consistent with objectives assumed at the European level.

The State Attorney General's Office highlights that this Court has also specified that areas not classified as suitable are not, for that reason alone, excluded from the possibility of hosting renewable energy plants, remaining fully accessible through ordinary authorization procedures, in compliance with the environmental, landscape, and territorial assessments provided for by the legal order. Such an approach excludes restrictive readings capable of determining effects of blocking or generalized paralysis of sector development outside predetermined boundaries.

The challenged provision essentially reproduces the same mechanism already declared constitutionally illegitimate, thus not a regulation of procedure according to canons of reasonable fact-finding and case-by-case weighting, but a generalized and automatic suspension pending a regional secondary source. Furthermore, by suspending ongoing proceedings and preventing the examination of new applications until the issuance of the regulation, it would effectively outline a framework of land-use governance and energy production from RES plants in which the installation of any plant would be impossible in unsuitable areas.

All of this would conflict with both state framework legislation and constitutional case law, which establish principles incompatible with those pursued by the legislation of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia.

This results in Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Sardinian Regional Law No. 31 of 2025 exceeding the powers of the Sardinian legislature under Articles 3 and 4 of the special statute, in violation of statutory limits and invading the sphere of state competence, due to conflict with the interposed legislation referred to in Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 119 of 2021 [sic, 199 of 2021], with reference to Article 117, third paragraph, of the Constitution, in the matter of «national production, transport and distribution of energy», also in conjunction with Article 10 of Constitutional Law No. 3 of 2001.

1.2.– The President of the Council of Ministers also considers Article 3 of the Constitution to be violated from the perspective of unreasonableness and inequality of treatment.

The regional provision, by establishing that, pending the adoption of a regulation, no course may be given to authorization applications relating to RES plants located in areas not included among suitable ones and that no new applications may be presented, save for certain limited hypotheses, introduces a procedural "blocking” criterion operating in an automatic and generalized manner, without providing any differentiation criteria in relation to the possible situations of the authorization procedures involved. The suspension would apply indiscriminately to procedures in their initial phase and to procedures already instructed or nearing completion, regardless of the progress of the administrative process, the extent of investments already incurred, or the concrete territorial impact of the planned plants.

In this way, the regional law equates objectively heterogeneous situations, treating them identically without reasonable justification, in violation of the principle of substantive equality enshrined in Article 3 of the Constitution.

The unreasonableness of the regulation would also emerge from the choice to subordinate the resumption of procedural activity to the adoption of a regional regulation, without providing suitable instruments to guarantee the proportionality of the effects produced during the transitional period. The regional legislature thus introduced an exceptional measure without correlating the generalized suspension to a targeted assessment of individual cases or to selective criteria allowing a distinction between interventions with differing impacts and relevance.

The challenged provision would furthermore cause a disparity of treatment among economic operators who find themselves in substantially analogous conditions, but who would be differently affected by the suspension due to entirely random factors, such as the timing of the application's submission or the procedural stage reached by the date of entry into force of the law. The regional regulation would thus assign decisive weight to purely temporal elements unsupported by any rational justification consistent with the declared purposes of the law. In other words, the regional provision would produce heterogeneous outcomes within the same administrative procedure, determining differentiated treatments not based on the characteristics of the intervention, but as a function of purely random circumstances in no way controllable by the administration.

1.3.– The appellant also alleges the violation of Article 41 of the Constitution, as it introduces an unjustified and disproportionate limitation on the freedom of private economic initiative in the sector of energy production from renewable sources.

The provision directly impacts the exercise of economic activities attributable to a strategic sector, automatically and indiscriminately precluding market access and the implementation of entrepreneurial initiatives that, under current legislation, would otherwise be permitted and subjected to case-by-case assessment.

Moreover, the compression of freedom of economic initiative would not be accompanied by an adequate balancing between the pursued public interest and the impacted private interests, nor would it be supported by selective or graded criteria suitable for circumscribing its impact.

The suspension ordered by the regional law would operate in fact without providing for a concrete verification of the actual compatibility of the planned interventions, or for a weighting of the incidence of individual initiatives on the territorial or environmental asset. The legislative choice would thus result in a temporary ban – only nominally so, since no alternative mechanism is provided in the event of failure to adopt the regional regulation within the terms established by the challenged provision – which is generalized, disregarding any substantive evaluation of individual economic activities and radically preventing their initiation or continuation.

In the appellant's opinion, the provision of a deadline for the adoption of the regional regulation would not, in itself, be sufficient to render the measure proportionate. During the transitional period, indeed, economic activity would remain entirely precluded for an entire category of operators, without the law introducing safeguarding, gradual, or compensatory mechanisms suitable for containing the effects of the suspension. Freedom of economic initiative would thus be sacrificed excessively, and in any event unreasonably, with respect to the pursued purposes.

1.4.– Finally, a violation of Article 97 of the Constitution is claimed, from the perspective of the sound administration and impartiality of administrative action, due to the introduction of a procedural paralysis devoid of adequate governance and guarantee instruments.

The challenged regional provision would compromise the sound administration and impartiality of administrative action by introducing a regulation that causes a generalized halt to authorization procedures without establishing suitable instruments to ensure their orderly and efficient management. It would directly impact the organization and functioning of the administration, preventing competent offices from exercising their functions according to criteria of continuity, efficiency, and responsibility, with consequent compromise of the certainty of administrative action and its capacity to effectively pursue the public interest outlined in general terms by state legislation.

The regional law would thus condition the operational exercise of administrative functions upon a future and uncertain event, with the risk of transforming regulatory inertia into a structural factor of administrative dysfunction. Furthermore, the failure to adopt the regulation could result, de facto, in an absolute ban on installing RES plants in unsuitable areas, definitively undermining the principle established by the state legislature according to which the classification of an area as unsuitable cannot assume the absolute meaning of an area where plant installation is impossible.

The challenged regulations would also determine an effect of systemic disorganization, as it would deprive the administration of any margin of evaluation and active management of procedures, transforming an ordinary administrative function into mere waiting for the adoption of a regulatory source. Administrative action would thus be suspended in a generalized manner, in contrast with the principles of sound administration and effectiveness under Article 97 of the Constitution.

2.– The Autonomous Region of Sardinia entered an appearance, asking that the questions of constitutionality be declared inadmissible or unfounded.

2.1.– As a preliminary matter, the Region raises an objection of inadmissibility of the appeal, arguing that full and necessary correspondence is lacking between the resolution of the Council of Ministers and the content of the introductory act. In particular, according to the respondent, the impugned resolution cited as interposed parameters the principles deducible from Decree-Law No. 175 of November 21, 2025 (Urgent measures regarding the Transition 5.0 Plan and the production of energy from renewable sources), converted, with amendments, into Law No. 4 of January 15, 2026, whereas the appeal identifies as the sole interposed parameter Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, which was repealed by Article 2, paragraph 1, letter q), of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, prior to the notification of the state appeal. In the Region's view, this entails the inadmissibility of the objections, especially since the content of the repealed provision was not reproduced in Legislative Decree No. 190 of November 25, 2024, entitled «Regulation of 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 August 5, 2022».

Furthermore, the ban on moratoria provided for by the repealed Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 operated only pending the identification of suitable areas; however, this phase had already elapsed, both as a result of Sardinian Regional Law No. 20 of 2024 and as a result of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, which, by Article 2, paragraph 1, letter h), inserted Articles 11-bis and 11-ter into Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024.

2.2.– On the merits, the Region argues that the objections are unfounded.

2.2.1.– Regarding the first ground of appeal, regional defense observes that the state provision indicated as the interposed parameter (Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021), as anticipated, was repealed by the aforementioned Article 2, paragraph 1, letter q), of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, which entered into force on November 22, 2025, i.e., just 16 days after the challenged regional provision and, in any event, prior to the date of notification of the appeal.

In the Autonomous Region of Sardinia's view, the hypothesized conflict between the regional law and the interposed parameter therefore no longer subsists.

The Region observes that the ban on moratoria provided for by Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 was expressly configured as a transitional measure, intended to operate until the identification of suitable areas. Since such identification occurred both through Sardinian Regional Law No. 20 of 2024 and, subsequently, via Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, which introduced Articles 11-bis and 11-ter into Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024, the relative temporal scope of efficacy must be considered already exhausted prior to its formal repeal.

In the view of the regional defense, in the present case, the suspending measure provided for by the challenged provision would not indiscriminately affect the entire regional territory, but would operate solely with reference to RES plants to be built in areas not classified as suitable. The continuation of proceedings relating to plants located in suitable areas would therefore remain unimpaired, as would the implementation of already authorized projects. From this perspective, the appellant's thesis that the challenged provision would determine a generalized paralysis of the development of plants powered by renewable energy sources is untenable. Similarly, it cannot be argued that it introduces an absolute and permanent ban on building plants in unsuitable areas, as it is instead a circumscribed measure, functionally connected to the needs of land-use governance and regional energy planning and intended to operate within objective and temporally defined limits. Nor is it demonstrated that the suspension can impact national and regional targets regarding energy production from renewable sources, both due to its limited duration and because the suspension would not affect suitable areas.

Instead, the regional provision responds to a need for uniformity in authorization procedural rules at a time characterized by the succession of various regulatory interventions concerning RES plants, as well as by various judicial outcomes. In this changing context, the challenged regional provision aims to prevent the sites involved in the construction of RES plants from being profoundly altered, thereby frustrating planning activities, sound land-use governance, and the thorough and correct fact-finding of applications.

According to the respondent, the Sardinian legislature acted in the exercise of legislative competence pursuant to Article 3, letter f), of the special statute in the matter of building and urban planning, a matter which would also encompass landscape matters, both at the administrative and legislative level by virtue of the so-called "parallelism principle” referred to in Article 6 of the special statute (on this point the Region refers to Judgment of this Court No. 51 of 2006).

This legislative power – far from consisting solely in the drafting of landscape plans – was ignored by the appellant through the invocation of concurrent legislative competence in the matter of «national production, transport and distribution of energy», which, however, cannot neutralize the regional competence under Article 3, letter f), of the statute of autonomy.

2.2.2.– With reference to the second ground of appeal, which alleges the violation of Article 3 of the Constitution from the perspective of unreasonableness and inequality of treatment, the Autonomous Region of Sardinia argues that, in complex proceedings structured in phases, as in the present case, ius superveniens may legitimately impact phases not yet concluded as of the date of entry into force of the new regulations, without the submission of the application serving to crystallize the pre-existing regulatory framework. In this regard, it invokes the principle tempus regit actionem (citing Judgment of this Court No. 184 of 2025). According to the respondent, it is physiological that long-term proceedings undergo regulatory variations during their course, without this entailing a violation of the principle of equality or legitimate expectations.

The Region further observes that operators who have submitted applications at the same time to obtain authorization to build the same type of plant would encounter the same suspending effects, while any differences would depend on the different factual situation existing at the time of entry into force of the regional law.

The suspension provided for by the challenged provision would then be characterized by temporariness and would have as its rationale the need to guarantee procedural uniformity and certainty at a time of regulatory evolution, avoiding the risk of initiating and/or continuing authorization procedures whose legal prerequisite might change shortly, thereby also safeguarding private expectations. The provision would constitute, in fact, a prudential instrument to the advantage of proposing economic operators who, in this manner, would not face the risk of pursuing an authorization process amidst uncertainty regarding the reference regulatory framework.

2.2.3.– Regarding the third ground of appeal, which alleges the violation of Article 41 of the Constitution, the Region recalls the arguments already made for the other objections and reiterates that the provision at issue would not be applicable to interventions falling within suitable areas nor even to plants whose authorization procedure has already concluded. It argues that the freedom of private economic initiative is not of an absolute character as it encounters, among its limits, environmental protection; the regional legislature, in dictating the challenged provision, would have taken into account the high impact that certain types of RES plants can produce on the territory and the need to provide for soil protection, consistently with the precautionary and preventive principles under Article 191 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The Region also recalls Regulation (EU) 2024/1991 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 24, 2024, on nature restoration and amending Regulation (EU) 2022/869, considering it indicative of a renewed centrality of the protection of natural capital, biodiversity, and environmental heritage, and argues that the need to facilitate the construction of plants from renewable sources must be coordinated with the equally constitutionally relevant need to ensure respect for cultural, landscape, and environmental heritage, pursuant to Article 9 of the Constitution.

2.2.4.– Regarding the fourth ground of appeal, which alleges the violation of Article 97 of the Constitution, the respondent reiterates the justifying rationale of the regional provision and affirms its compliance with the principles of efficiency and economy of administrative action. It observes that, in the absence of such regulations, the administration would run the risk of conducting complex fact-finding that could prove useless, in light of the definition of the new administrative regime and further regulatory choices, including by the regional legislature, in adaptation to Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, and Legislative Decree No. 178 of November 26, 2025, entitled «Supplementary and corrective provisions to Legislative Decree No. 25 of November 2024, No. 190, containing 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 August 5, 2022».

3.– By a brief filed on May 19, 2026, the State Attorney General's Office contested the objections of inadmissibility raised by the Region, arguing they were unfounded and insisting on a declaration of unconstitutionality of Article 1, letter b), of Sardinian Regional Law No. 31 of 2025.

The Law in Essence

4.– By the appeal indicated in the heading (reg. app. no. 1 of 2026), the President of the Council of Ministers challenged Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Sardinian Regional Law No. 31 of 2025.

The provision establishes: «1. The following amendments and additions are made to Article 1 of Regional Law No. 20 of December 5, 2024 (Urgent measures for the identification of suitable and unsuitable areas and surfaces for the installation and promotion of renewable energy source (RES) plants and for the simplification of authorization procedures): [...] b) after paragraph 7, the following is added: "7 bis. By means of a specific regulation to be issued within ninety days from the entry into force of this law, the Region shall identify directives for the correct application of the regulations for the realization of RES plants falling within areas not included among suitable areas. Pending the regulation referred to in the preceding period, no course may be given to authorization applications which, although submitted prior to the entry into force of this law, fall within areas not included among suitable areas, nor may new applications be submitted. Applications aimed at self-consumption or the needs of an energy community are exempt."».

4.1.– The President of the Council of Ministers alleges, first, the violation of Article 117, third paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to the fundamental principles established by state legislation in the matter of «national production, transport and distribution of energy» and, specifically, by Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, which prohibits the introduction of moratoria or suspensions of authorization procedures pending the identification of suitable areas.

The challenged regional provision, by introducing an automatic and generalized suspension of procedural activity aimed at authorizing the construction of RES plants in areas not classified as suitable, would run counter to the aforementioned principles, invading the sphere reserved for state regulations. The limits established by Articles 3 and 4 of the special statute in the exercise of statutory competence in the matter of «production and distribution of electric power» (Article 4, letter e) would also be violated.

4.2.– The challenged provision would furthermore violate Article 3 of the Constitution from the perspective of unreasonableness and inequality of treatment, as the suspension would operate indiscriminately on all applications relating to areas not included among suitable ones, without any consideration of the stage of the proceedings, the amount of investments already incurred, or the characteristics of the interventions, resulting in uniform treatment of heterogeneous situations.

4.3.– The appellant also alleges the violation of Article 41 of the Constitution, considering that the challenged provision entails an unjustified and disproportionate compression of the freedom of private economic initiative, as it would preclude in the aforementioned areas, in a generalized manner, the initiation or continuation of economic activities in the sector of energy production from renewable sources, without providing balancing forms or case-by-case assessments.

4.4.– Finally, Article 97 of the Constitution would be violated, as the provision at issue would cause a paralysis of administrative action, preventing competent offices from exercising their functions according to criteria of continuity, efficiency, and impartiality, and subordinating the resumption of activity to a future and uncertain regulatory act, without adequate guarantee mechanisms.

5.– As a preliminary matter, the objections of inadmissibility formulated by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia must be examined.

5.1.– The regional defense objects, first of all, to the inadmissibility of the appeal for lack of correspondence between the resolution of the Council of Ministers and the content of the introductory act. In particular, the resolution ordering the challenge cited as interposed parameters the principles deducible from Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, whereas the appeal indicates as the sole interposed parameter Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, without any mention of the aforementioned decree-law.

The objection is unfounded.

According to the case law of this Court, the resolution of the Council of Ministers and the subsequent appeal must present substantial correspondence as to the subject matter of the challenge, the invoked constitutional parameters, and the essential core of the proposed objections, without, however, requiring perfect literal identity or absolute overlap between the content of the resolution and that of the introductory act (Judgments No. 13 of 2026 and No. 188 of 2025).

Governmental resolution constitutes in fact the political-administrative act authorizing the challenge, while the appeal represents the technical forum for developing and articulating objections. It follows that any integrative differences or argumentative clarifications contained in the appeal do not, in themselves, render the challenge inadmissible provided they do not alter the thema decidendum nor introduce entirely new issues extraneous to the authorizing resolution.

In the present case, such substantial correspondence must be deemed to subsist, as the resolution of the Council of Ministers clearly identifies as the subject matter of the challenge the generalized suspension of authorization procedures relating to RES plants and cites the conflict of the regional regulations with the fundamental principles of the "energy" matter and with the uniform state regulation of the sector.

The appeal, while identifying in Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 the interposed parameter most pertinent for the purpose of constitutionality review, does not alter the substantial core of the objections, nor does it introduce a new or extraneous subject of challenge to the Council of Ministers' resolution. The reference contained in the latter to Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, and to the amendments made to Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024 falls indeed within the same regulatory context governing suitable areas and the authorization procedure for renewable energy plants, appearing strictly connected to the denounced violation of the fundamental principles of the matter. Consequently, the failure to expressly cite the aforementioned decree-law in the introductory act does not determine any substantial discontinuity with respect to the authorizing resolution, given that the appeal is limited to developing and clarifying the same objection already object of the governmental decision, by identifying a specific interposed parameter deemed more adequate to support it.

5.2.– The respondent also objects that the interposed parameter invoked in the appeal, namely Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, was repealed by Article 2, paragraph 1, letter q), of Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, and highlights that such repeal occurred prior to the notification of the state appeal. This would render the objections inadmissible due to the non-existence of the interposed parameter.

The Autonomous Region of Sardinia argues for the inadmissibility of the appeal, contending that the ban on moratoria provided for by the repealed Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 had prescriptive value only pending the identification of suitable areas; however, this phase had already elapsed as a result of both Sardinian Regional Law No. 20 of 2024 and Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, with the consequence that the temporal interval of operativity of the state ban concluded even before its formal repeal.

On this point, it must be observed, first of all, that the repeal of Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 by Decree-Law No. 175 of 2025, as converted, occurred subsequent to the adoption of Sardinian Regional Law No. 31 of 2025.

Indeed, it must be emphasized that, for the admissibility of the questions, the circumstance that the provision invoked as an interposed parameter was in force and effective at the time of adoption of the challenged regional regulations is what matters.

The subsequent repeal of the provision invoked as an interposed parameter does not render the questions inadmissible, as the need remains to scrutinize the constitutionality of the challenged regional regulations with regard to the regulatory context in force at the time of their adoption and to their effects.

In the present case, it cannot be considered that the evolution of the regulatory framework caused the subject matter of the proceedings to lapse, given that the subsequent amendments invoked by the respondent are not capable of retroactively erasing the invoked parameter, nor of depriving of relevance the verification of the constitutional compliance of the challenged regional regulations in the context in which they were issued. The questions of constitutionality of the regional provision must in fact be scrutinized with reference to the allocation of legislative powers between the State and the Autonomous Region of Sardinia within the perimeter defined by Judgment of this Court No. 28 of 2025.

6.– In order to examine the merits of the issues, it is appropriate to recall that the European Union, in adherence to the Kyoto Protocol adopted on December 11, 1997, on the basis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, ratified and made executive by Law No. 120 of June 1, 2002, identified the energy transition as one of the pillars of environmental policy and economic development policy.

The strategy for promoting renewable energy sources was initially implemented, for the purposes relevant here, by Directive 2001/77/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of September 27, 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 April 23, 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, and in turn repealed by Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 11, 2018, on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, which gave new impetus to the aforementioned strategy, also following the amendments lastly made through Directive (EU) 2023/2413 of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 18, 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. Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 30, 2021, establishing the framework for achieving climate neutrality and amending Regulations (EC) No. 401/2009 and (EU) 2018/1999 («European Climate Law»), by Article 1 then established the binding target of climate neutrality in the Union by 2050, as well as, by 2030, the internal net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (emissions net of removals) of at least 55 percent compared to 1990 levels. Still later, Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2577 of December 22, 2022, establishing a framework to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy, introduced further immediate and temporary actions to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy sources, in particular through targeted measures capable of accelerating the pace of renewable energy deployment in the Union in the short term.

In order to achieve the objectives of combating climate change and favoring the use of energy from renewable sources fixed at the European level up to 2030, Italy initially approved Legislative Decree No. 387 of December 29, 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 March 3, 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).

Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 was framed within this context, adopted in the exercise of «an intertwining of exclusive state legislative competencies in the matter of environmental protection» and concurrent competencies in the matter of «national production, transport and distribution of energy», as well as «in implementation of Directive 2018/2001/EU» (Judgment No. 28 of 2025; see also Judgment No. 127 of 2026).

More recently, Legislative Decree No. 190 of 2024 intervened to reorganize the complex regulations of the matter. One of the most significant novelties introduced by the aforementioned decree is undoubtedly the incorporation, in Article 3, of the European Union principle of prevalence of the public interest in the realization of renewable energy production plants and the works, including infrastructure, connected thereto.

7.– This Court has repeatedly examined the evolution of international, European, and national regulations concerning plants powered by renewable energy sources, highlighting how they are oriented toward favoring the deployment of such energy sources through simplified authorization procedures and instruments suitable for guaranteeing the achievement of energy transition objectives assumed at supranational and domestic levels.

In this regard, Judgment No. 275 of 2012 should be recalled, in which it was highlighted that «Community legislation has been promoting, for over a decade, greater recourse to energy from renewable sources, expressly linking it to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and thus also to compliance with the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in a perspective of radical change in Union energy policy».

It was further affirmed that: «[t]he possibility of providing limits on the faculty to authorize the installation of energy production plants from renewable sources [...] places itself [...] in open contradiction [...] with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to the objective of guaranteeing maximum dissemination of plants from renewable energy sources, pursued both by Directive 2009/28/EC, and previously by Directive 2001/77/EC, as well as by Directive 2018/2001/EU» and that «[a] similar purpose, reflected in the regulations dictated by the cited directives regarding authorization, certification, and licensing procedures, is clearly made explicit by Directive 2018/2001/EU. It highlights there that "greater reliance on renewable energy or renewable energy constitutes an important part [of the] measures necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to comply with the Union's commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, following the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ('Paris Agreement')" (recital no. 2)», concluding to the effect that «[i]t is necessary [...] to reiterate [...] the need to guarantee the "maximum dissemination of plants from renewable energy sources" (Judgment No. 286 of 2019 and, similarly, ex multis, Judgments No. 221, No. 216 and No. 77 of 2022, No. 177 of 2021, No. 106 of 2020, No. 69 of 2018, No. 13 of 2014 and No. 44 of 2011) "in the common intent 'to reduce greenhouse gas emissions' (Judgment No. 275 of 2012; in the same sense, Judgments No. 46 of 2021, No. 237 of 2020, No. 148 of 2019 and No. 85 of 2012), in order to counter global warming and climate change (Judgment No. 77 of 2022)" (Judgments No. 216 and No. 121 of 2022)» (Judgment No. 27 of 2023).

8.– Having thus reconstructed the features of the reference regulations, the questions of constitutionality concerning Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Sardinian Regional Law No. 31 of 2025, brought with reference to Articles 3 and 4, letter e), of the special statute, are well-founded.

The challenged regional provision introduces, after paragraph 7 of Article 1 of Sardinian Regional Law No. 20 of 2024, a new paragraph 7-bis which, on the one hand, entrusts to a regional regulation – to be adopted within ninety days – the definition of directives concerning the correct application of the regulations for RES plants located in areas not included among suitable areas; on the other hand, it establishes that, pending the adoption of the regulation, no course may be given to authorization applications already submitted relating to such areas, nor may new applications be submitted, with the exception of those aimed at self-consumption or the needs of energy communities.

This Court has already affirmed (Judgments No. 184 and No. 28 of 2025) that the energy transition constitutes an objective of national and European relevance, which does not, however, determine the full absorption of regional competencies in urban planning, landscape, and land-use governance matters. To this profile, indeed, the role of regional territorial planning and the particular constitutional position of special autonomies have been valued, recognizing the possibility for regions to impact the location of RES plants through conforming and planning instruments. This Court, however, has clarified how such competencies cannot translate into generalized moratoria incompatible with the fundamental principles of the matter nor compromise the continuity of the national authorization system for RES plants.

8.1.– More precisely, Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Sardinian Regional Law No. 31 of 2025 was adopted in the exercise of statutory competence in the matter of «production and distribution of electric power» attributed to the concurrent legislative competence of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia by Article 4, letter e), of the special statute. Such legislative competence, as already noted, encounters limits deriving from Articles 3 and 4 of the autonomy statute itself, according to which the legislative power of the Autonomous Region, in the matters expressly indicated therein, is exercised «[i]n harmony with the Constitution and the principles of the legal order of the Republic and with compliance with international obligations and national interests, as well as the fundamental norms of economic and social reforms of the Republic» (Article 3) and «within the limits [...] of the principles established by the laws of the State» (Article 4).

Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 – as affirmed in Judgment No. 28 of 2025 – was adopted in the exercise of an intertwining of exclusive state legislative competencies in the matter of environmental protection (Article 117, second paragraph, letter e, Constitution) and concurrent competencies in «national production, transport and distribution of energy» (Article 117, third paragraph, Constitution), as well as in implementation of Directive 2018/2001/EU on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. Its purpose, as stated, is to «accelerate the path of sustainable growth of the Country, bringing provisions regarding energy from renewable sources» and to achieve the «objectives of increasing the share of energy from renewable sources by 2030», «in compliance with the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan» (Article 1, paragraphs 1, 2, and 3, respectively).

Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Sardinian Regional Law No. 31 of 2025, in providing that «no course may be given to authorization applications which, although submitted prior to the entry into force of this law, fall within areas not included among suitable areas, nor may new applications be submitted», conflicts with the fundamental principles governing the matter of «national production, transport and distribution of energy», deducible from Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021 and, in particular, from Article 20, paragraph 6, of the same legislative decree.

The latter, implementing Directive 2018/2001/EU and consistent with the objectives fixed by Regulation 2021/1119/UE, prohibits in fact the introduction of suspension or moratorium measures capable of hindering the achievement of the decarbonization objectives and maximum dissemination of renewable energy sources pursued by European and domestic legal orders.

The challenged regional provision, which precludes the continuation of authorization procedures already initiated and the submission of new applications in areas not included among those classified as suitable, essentially results in a moratorium-like measure incompatible with the reference state regulatory framework.

This Court has already affirmed that the principles deducible from state legislation implementing European obligations regarding renewable energy integrate fundamental principles of the energy matter and, as such, bind also Regions with special autonomy and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano in the exercise of their respective legislative competencies, including statutory ones concerning energy production (Judgments No. 184 and No. 28 of 2025).

The challenged provision therefore exceeds the limits of legislative competencies recognized to the Autonomous Region of Sardinia by Articles 3 and 4, letter e), of the special statute, running counter to the fundamental principle of maximum dissemination of plants from renewable sources of European matrix, incorporated into our legal order by Article 20, paragraph 6, of Legislative Decree No. 199 of 2021, invoked as an interposed norm. From this conflict stems the unconstitutionality of the challenged regional provision.

The circumstance, emphasized by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, that the suspension of already initiated authorization procedures and the prohibition of submitting new applications are temporally limited, being intended to operate «pending the regulation» aimed at identifying directives for the correct application of regulations concerning the construction of RES plants, does not assume contrary relevance. Nor does the circumstance that such measures exclusively concern plants falling in areas not included among those qualified as suitable assume relevance. These elements, indeed, are not capable of excluding conflict with the fundamental principles of the matter deducible from state legislation implementing European obligations.

9.– The President of the Council of Ministers also alleges the violation of Article 3 of the Constitution, from the perspective of reasonableness and inequality of treatment, because the suspension of authorization applications would operate indiscriminately on proceedings located in profoundly different phases, without considering the state of the fact-finding process, investments made, or the differing degree of expectations matured by economic operators, without adequate justification and without a proportionate balancing of the interests involved.

The question is well-founded.

According to the consistent case law of this Court, the constitutionality of legislative provisions that may determine a risk of inequality of treatment must be «"evaluated in relation to their specific content" [...] and the criteria inspiring the choices realized with them must appear, as well as the relative implementation modalities (Judgments No. 182 of 2017 and No. 270 of 2010; in the same sense, Judgments No. 275 and No. 85 of 2013)» (Judgment No. 49 of 2021).

As already specified, the regional provision results in an impediment that blocks, in an unreasonable manner, all already submitted authorization applications for the construction of RES plants on areas not included among suitable ones and prevents, for the same areas, the submission of new requests.

This Court has already clarified that the classification of unsuitability of areas for the installation of RES plants «can never equate to an absolute and aprioristic ban» (Judgment No. 134 of 2025); therefore, the Autonomous Region of Sardinia cannot hinder the construction of such plants on its territory, as this is in blatant contrast with the need for the development of renewable energies: an interest which, as already recalled, is «of crucial relevance» precisely «with respect to the vital objective of environmental protection, also in the interest of future generations» (Judgment No. 216 of 2022).

The challenged provision introduces a suspending measure that operates automatically and generalizedly, without providing any criterion of gradation or differentiation in relation to the different stages of already pending authorization procedures. It indiscriminately strikes all applications relating to RES plants falling within areas not classified as suitable, regardless of the level of advancement of the fact-finding process and precludes, preventively and indiscriminately, the submission of new requests. Such a regulation proves intrinsically unreasonable, as it realizes a generalized procedural halt unsupported by criteria suitable for modulating the incidence of the measure on the different situations involved.

At the same time – as already highlighted in preceding points 7 and 9 – it determines an obstacle to the achievement of the decarbonization objectives and maximum dissemination of renewable energy sources pursued by Directive 2018/2001/EU and Regulation 2021/1119/UE, without such compression being supported by an adequate and reasonable justification.

10.– From the foregoing stems the exceeding of the limits of legislative competence under Articles 3 and 4 of the special statute and the violation of the principles of equality and reasonableness enshrined in Article 3 of the Constitution; consequently, Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Sardinian Regional Law No. 31 of 2025 must be declared constitutionally illegitimate.

11.– The further objections are absorbed.

on these grounds

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

declares the unconstitutionality of Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Autonomous Region of Sardinia Law No. 31 of November 6, 2025, entitled «Amendments to Article 1 and Schedule G of Regional Law No. 20 of December 5, 2024 (Urgent measures for the identification of suitable and unsuitable areas and surfaces for the installation and promotion of renewable energy source (RES) plants and for the simplification of authorization procedures)».

So decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on June 10, 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Angelo BUSCEMA, Rapporteur

Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry

Deposited in the Registry on July 23, 2026