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The Lombardy Regional Administrative Court has dismissed appeals against the naming of Milan Malpensa airport after Silvio Berlusconi, determining that municipalities do not have the right to oppose a decision that falls within the scope of state competence and is mainly symbolic in nature.
The decision relates to the complaints filed by the Municipality of Milan and the municipalities of Cardano al Campo, Samarate and Somma Lombardo against the acts adopted by Enac, with the approval of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, decided to dedicate the airport's name to the former Prime Minister who passed away in June 2023.
It all started on 20 June 2023, when the Lombardy Regional Council approved an agenda to name the airport after Berlusconi. After a long institutional process involving the Presidency of the Council, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and Enac, the latter approved the order on 11 July 2024, making the name applicable with immediate effect. The Municipality of Milan and the municipalities of Cardano al Campo, Samarate and Somma Lombardo opposed the acts in Tar, requesting their suspension and annulment.
According to the judges, the naming of an airport cannot be equated with traditional toponymy, such as streets or squares, an area in which municipalities exercise direct competences. Airports, Tar emphasizes, are infrastructure that belongs to the state and serve interests of national and international importance, such as the transport of passengers and goods.
From this it follows that the local units that have filed the complaint do not possess a qualified legal position to justify the lawsuit. In the absence of a direct and concrete interest, the objections are largely inadmissible. The designation is also considered an act of essentially honorary value, without immediate detrimental effects for the territories involved. Tar has also rejected the argument according to which the contested acts would be political in nature and therefore would be excluded from judicial review, clarifying that these are administrative acts, potentially controllable, but not illegal in the specific case.
A point of interest relates to the legitimacy of the Municipality of Milan. Tar explains that Malpensa airport is located entirely in the territory of the province of Varese and not in that of the Municipality of Milan or its province. The so-called “vicinitas” is therefore missing, that is, the territorial link that allows a local authority to claim the infringement of one of its qualified interests. For this reason, the complaint of the capital of Lombardy is declared inadmissible.
In terms of the normative plan, the decision emphasizes that the rules on toponymy, including prefectural authorizations or time limits for naming places with the names of persons deceased for less than ten years, do not apply to airports. In the enacting clause, the Court dismissed part of the claims on the merits and declared the rest inadmissible for lack of legitimacy and interest in acting, compensating for the legal costs due to the novelty and complexity of the issues addressed.
The decision thus consolidates the legal framework that attributes to the state the competence for decisions on the naming of airports, closing, at least in the first instance, the dispute over the naming of Malpensa after Berlusconi.
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