Two months after the referendum against “water privatization”, problems of the Italian water and sanitation remain the same as before, but their solution is more complicated: on the one hand, the popular vote puts an obstacle on the pathway of a reform whose aim was to modernize water utilities by adopting a commercial model sustained by full-cost recovery tariffs. On the other hand, the financial troubles affecting Italy and the Euro Zone during the summer have made the hypothesis of stepping back to a fiscal model still more impossible to foresee. In the meanwhile, the sector languishes, EU fines are looming, and an important opportunity for creating wealth is being lost. The present article explores the likely scenarios and tries to outline some possible ways out of the crisis, keeping in mind either the necessity not to betray the popular vote nor to forget the fundamentals of economics.
