Sardinia is a land that cannot afford to forget itself. Its history is not made of slogans, but of sacrifice, work, and responsibility. The soldiers of the Brigata Sassari, in the First World War, made the Sardinian people legendary for their patriotic virtues: they defended their land and the future of the generations that would come after them, facing difficult choices without ever backing down.
That courage today seems diminished. In its place, ideological positions are advancing that slow down the technological and industrial development of the island. These visions, often unable to deal with the complexity of the present, risk turning Sardinia into a place of immobility and regression, in stark contradiction with the history of those who knew how to face much tougher challenges.
Bureaucracy and Numbers: Where the Future Stalls
The case that best embodies this blockage is the stalemate on the expansion of the Rwm plant in Domusnovas, in Sulcis Iglesiente — a topic that intertwines international contracts, advanced technology, administrative authorities, and irreconcilable political visions.
In recent years, the plant has gone from being a marginal facility to a strategic hub of European military production. The contracts secured by Rwm Italia have grown impressively, from about 28 million euros in 2021 to over 240 million in 2023, with an order portfolio estimated at over 200 million euros just for advanced products like "loitering" munitions destined for eight NATO and non-NATO countries.
This development would have implied not only an increase in production volumes but also the integration of cutting-edge technologies and greater employment capacity in one of the areas with the highest unemployment in Italy. Yet, the bureaucratic obstacle is not the market, but the internal decision-making paralysis within the Sardinian Region.
The crucial point is the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on the ex-post expansion of departments and warehouses: the procedure, started more than 30 months ago, has been completed by the technical offices but has never been formally deliberated in the Council before the deadlines imposed by the TAR. By law, the final decision requires a vote from the regional executive, but this vote has never come. The council, led by President Alessandra Todde, chose not to bring the resolution to approval, considering some parts of the investigation in the health and hydrogeological instability fields still incomplete.
The result was inevitable: the failure to exercise regional competence within the legal deadlines has paved the way for commissariamento ad acta by the national government, which could now complete the procedure in place of the regional administration.
Youth, Employment, and the Weight of an Ideological No
The price of this prolonged indecision is mainly paid by the Sardinian youth. Without a stable connection to technology and modern production chains, they will be forced to emigrate, depriving the island of energy, skills, and growth prospects.
Anyone following this story closely knows that the real obstacle is not a lack of respect for the environment or health, but the transformation of administrative issues into ideological currency. Instead of promoting a serious and transparent debate on environmental conditions, industrial safety, production diversification, or possible civil reconversions, the topic of expansion has been manipulated as a symbol to oppose a "pacifist" or "anti-nuclear" vision. This approach has paralyzed a decision that could have resulted in thousands of jobs, specialized knowledge, and high-tech supply chains rooted in the territory.
Sardinia does not need to always say no. It needs to govern development, with clear rules, rigorous controls, and political responsibility. Like the Sardinians of the Brigata Sassari, who did not choose the easiest path, but the necessary one. Sardinian people, let's not let ideologized bureaucracy decide our destiny. It's time to choose the future instead of decline.
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