Interview with Giulia Pastorella – Member of Parliament, Vice President of Azione
(By di Alessandro Longo, journalist and technology expert)
Giulia Pastorella (Azione party) is among the signatories of a bill — the first in Italy — on data centers. She is also one of the politicians most outspoken on innovation issues.
Honourable Pastorella, let’s start with the basics: why does Italy need a law on data centers?
Because despite being well-established infrastructures, increasingly in demand from operators and companies that need computing power, data centers are not recognized in Italian legislation.
They’re not recognized? Really?
Exactly. There’s no ATECO code, and they’re not covered under tax, urban planning, or environmental regulations.
And why is that a problem in practice?
For many reasons. Some land use designations that municipalities apply to these infrastructures — based on rules not designed for data centers — require, for example, a large number of parking spaces. Then there’s the bureaucratic chaos: no one knows who should issue the authorization to begin construction. The municipality? The ministry? Which one? This results in massive delays in obtaining permits.
Do we have any estimates on the delays?
From what I’ve been told, the average waiting time is much longer than in the rest of Europe — about five years.
Five years for a data center in 2025 is absurd.
(Laughs) Yes, it’s an extremely long time — far too long.
And that’s not all. Data center generator sets are regulated under environmental law as if they were running continuously, whereas, as everyone knows, they only activate in emergencies. The result is a lengthy and burdensome environmental impact assessment.
One consequence of this confusion is that the public also has a distorted view. A NIMBY syndrome is beginning to develop, where communities — not understanding what data centers actually are — try to slow down construction, as has happened in the Turin and Milan areas.
So what are the objectives of a first regulation tailored to data centers?
The ultimate goal is clear and unified authorization procedures, defined areas of competence, and certain timelines — ensuring the sustainable development of these infrastructures. The law also suggests using abandoned industrial areas or former coal power plants. Data centers can be an opportunity to regenerate such areas.
We also propose the use of renewable energy, self-generation of power, and the reuse of waste heat where possible.
More broadly, what’s at stake?
Our country sits at the crossroads of the Mediterranean. It’s already playing that role with the boom in undersea cables, which are complemented by onshore data centers — an ecosystem representing billions of euros in potential economic value.
Proper regulation can unlock these billions by bringing order. Our proposals are not shortcuts, mind you, but we must ensure that foreign and domestic investors know what to expect when building a data center in Italy.
Mayors are receiving requests from major investors to build such facilities, but they tell us they’re forced to walk on very thin ice. They invent workarounds to classify the activity and thereby attract investment to their areas — with benefits for local employment and additional contributions from investors, such as playgrounds, bike paths, or the restoration of old villas into public parks.
Mayors are therefore eager to welcome them properly — without making mistakes.
Another goal of a law that brings order is to ensure greater uniformity in the distribution of data centers across the country, thanks to national rules establishing the same authorization procedures in all regions. Even now, the market is looking beyond Milan for alternative locations to build these facilities.
Is there also a question of national sovereignty?
It’s related, but not the focus of this law. We haven’t included any requirement that data or infrastructure be Italian-owned. Of course, if data centers aren’t built in Italy because regulations are an obstacle, it will be difficult to keep data within the country.
How does this relate to European regulations?
An interesting point is that EU law doesn’t address authorization aspects — each country is proceeding on its own, in a scattered way. For this reason too, Italy needs to keep pace by simplifying its rules.
Some comments on the proposal have been critical. There are concerns that it could mainly favor large foreign investors. How do you protect Italian players — perhaps smaller ones who already operate data centers?
No — clear rules benefit everyone. In fact, they especially help smaller players who don’t have armies of lawyers to navigate the chaos of current regulations.
The law doesn’t discriminate between large and small data centers and also supports the upgrading of existing infrastructures. One article specifically focuses on incentivizing current data centers — in other words, we shouldn’t build new ones if existing ones can be improved, since they are energy-intensive and have environmental impacts. That’s the opposite of what the critics claim.
It’s true that the current version of the law includes tax incentives, which have caused controversy among those who have already built data centers. But I proposed an amendment to remove them — which was rejected — because this is a healthy sector that doesn’t need public money to grow.
Let’s move to a point that’s still unclear: the legislative process.
Right. The Budget Committee in the Chamber stated that there’s no funding to cover those incentives, so we’ll have to send the text back to the original Transport Committee to remove them. At that point, we can bring it to the floor in October.
Meanwhile, the Executive — the Ministry of Business — has moved ahead, held a consultation, and is preparing to issue a decree on environmental and authorization aspects.
That move could undermine our work. The question is whether there will be cooperation with the government or not.
It’s a topic that interests many — there are billions in potential business behind it. We’ll see who wants to claim credit for it. What remains is the paradox of a government that wanted to pass an AI law first, but not one on enabling infrastructures like data centers.
