On 22 November, Italy enacted a decree that should alarm every EU policymaker concerned with climate ambition. Yet it will likely be dismissed as a domestic regulatory matter. This is precisely the problem, writes Patrizio Donati, CEO and founder of Terrawatt, an Italian Independent Power Producer (IPP) (pictured, below).
The decree, framed as an emergency measure, fundamentally reshapes the landscape for solar deployment by introducing two critical restrictions to Italy’s permitting framework. First, it eliminates vast tracts of previously suitable land around industrial sites. Second, and more damaging, it narrows the definition of “industrial site” from any industrially classified land to only sites that have obtained environmental authorization. The cascade effect is ruthless: available land for solar development contracts dramatically, permitting timelines lengthen, and investor certainty evaporates.
Most troubling is the decree’s retroactive reach. Projects already in the permitting pipeline, i.e., investments made in good faith under the previous regulatory framework, receive no protection. They simply become non-compliant with new rules.
This isn’t accidental policy drift. It’s a deliberate recalibration driven by a mix of ideological resistance to renewable energy and capture by narrow interest groups. The Italian government has chosen regulatory uncertainty over certainty for investors.
But here’s where Europe should take notice: Italy’s actions directly violate the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED). The Court of Administrative Law already signalled this. The previous framework was deemed too restrictive. And yet, faced with this clear breach, the EU’s response options are painfully limited. The European Commission can launch an infringement procedure. It can issue formal notices. Eventually, it can take Italy to court. But these mechanisms operate on timescales measured in years. By the time judicial remedies materialise, market damage will be done, projects will be abandoned, and investment will have fled to friendlier jurisdictions.
The Italian case is not exceptional. It is illustrative. It reveals a structural gap in EU climate governance: the bloc has the power to set ambitious directives but lacks credible enforcement mechanisms to ensure member states actually implement them.
This becomes even clearer when we examine what happened in Brazil last week.
COP30 concluded without an explicit international mandate to accelerate the global transition from fossil fuels. The EU arrived in Belém expecting to build on previous commitments, to push back against backsliding nations, and to lead a coalition for climate action. Instead, it found itself isolated. When Colombia and 81 other nations called for a roadmap to operationalise the fossil fuel transition commitment, member states blocked the block’s collective participation. The EU had to scramble with its own watered-down proposal.
The irony is bitter: Europe’s weakness in negotiating global climate action stems directly from its weakness in enforcing climate action at home.
Why should China, India, and Saudi Arabia take seriously an EU plea for bold climate commitments when the EU cannot even ensure that a major member state—Italy, the bloc’s third-largest economy—deploys renewable energy according to binding directives? Why should developing nations trust EU leadership on just transition mechanisms when European member states manufacture regulatory chaos that punishes investors trying to execute the energy transition? The EU’s COP30 struggle wasn’t primarily about geopolitical headwinds or American absence. It was about credibility. And Italy’s decree is an example of this.
The solution cannot be perpetual infringement procedures and hope. The EU needs enforcement mechanisms with teeth, deployed at the speed investment decisions require.
This is where the Draghi Report and EU emergency powers become relevant. Mario Draghi’s analysis emphasises that EU competitiveness depends on accelerating the energy transition. His report points toward streamlined permitting and investment certainty as prerequisites. These aren’t soft recommendations. They reflect hard economic logic.
The EU should consider invoking the emergency regulation mechanism to establish fast-tracked permitting for renewable projects of strategic significance. Rather than waiting for case law to clarify RED implementation across 27 member states, the EU could establish a parallel fast-track pathway: renewable projects meeting EU technical standards could receive expedited approval timelines backed by financial consequences for member states that obstruct or delay them.
This goes beyond infringement procedures. It means direct EU authority over renewable projects above defined capacity thresholds, with binding timelines for permitting decisions. It means withholding EU infrastructure funding or climate finance from member states that systematically violate renewable deployment targets. It means the Commission acquiring the power to approve renewable projects directly when national permitting processes become tools of obstruction rather than environmental review.
If the EU is serious about the 2030 and 2050 targets, if it’s serious about leading global climate negotiations, if it’s serious about maintaining competitiveness in a decarbonising world, then it must be serious about actually deploying renewables at scale.
Italy’s latest decree is a test case. Will the EU treat it as a regulatory footnote, or as a symptom requiring structural reform? The answer will reverberate far beyond Rome. It will determine whether EU climate leadership is a genuine force or an increasingly rhetorical exercise, and whether member states understand they can continue manufacturing uncertainty with minimal consequence.
