In the Pisan countryside, the government is preparing to build a military base that has catalysed the opposition of social movements, pacifists and environmentalists for the demilitarisation of the territory. The costs -520 million taken from the Development and Cohesion Fund- have already tripled.
We will discuss this in Como on 7 September at Altra Cernobbio.

by Fausto Pascali and Martina Pignatti Morano, originally published in Sbilanciamoci

In the Pisan countryside, the government is preparing to start work on the construction of a military base that has catalysed the joint opposition of social movements, pacifist and environmentalist for the demilitarisation of the territory. Even non-politically active citizens in the municipalities of Pisa and Pontedera have understood the scale of the hoax: for this base, an allocation of 520 million euro is planned to date, taken from the Development and Social Cohesion Fund and from resources allocated to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, a cost that has already tripled compared to the first base project. The local and national associations involved in contesting this project will discuss it on 7 September in Como in the context of the Sbilanciamoci Forum 'L'Altra Cernobbio', but in order to broaden the protest to the trade union and social forces, it is important to reconstruct the facts.

Two years have now passed since the spring of 2022, when the council group Diritti in Comune (Rights in the Municipality) in Pisa discovered and publicly denounced what had appeared in the Official Gazette: a small paragraph in which the Draghi government identified by ministerial decree 'the infrastructural intervention for the construction of the headquarters of the Gruppo Intervento Speciale (Special Intervention Group), the 1st Carabinieri Parachute Regiment 'Tuscania' and the Canine Defence Centre as a work intended for national defence'. In reality, it was to be discovered later that there was a well-detailed project, known for more than a year, but kept hidden by the local authorities involved: the Municipality and Province of Pisa, the Region of Tuscany and the Migliarino San Rossore and Massaciuccoli Natural Park Authority. The popular indignation that followed the denunciation led to the birth of the 'No Base neither at Coltano nor elsewhere' movement, which immediately forced the new government to stop developing the project, but also to move to pursue the militarisation of the territory by other means. In May of the same year, on the one hand, the project was placedunder commission as it was characterised by 'a high degree of project complexity, a particular executive or implementation difficulty involving a significant impact on the socio-economic fabric', and on the other, an inter-institutional round table was set up 'with the task of identifying solutions to relocate the headquarters' of the special wards. A round table that turns out to be an institutional farce aimed mainly at bamboozling public opinion, but which in fact takes place behind closed doors, involving not the population, but the very bodies that knew about the project from the outset and had kept quiet, a round table whose meetings are not known except for contradictory news in the newspapers, while the extraordinary commissioner of the project proceeds apace: asks for and obtains new funds for a pre-feasibility study in the area of the Centro Interforze Studi per le Applicazioni Militari (Cisam): a wooded area also within the San Rossore Park and where for decades it has been planned - financed but not implemented - to clean up the waste of what was a nuclear research reactor for military purposes decommissioned in the 1980s. The technical study is entrusted to Integra AES - a consultancy firm specialising in defence systems and operating worldwide, including in post-conflict areas such as Iraq or Afghanistan - and which returns, at a cost of 65,000 euros of public money, an aerial map showing the new areas and which, without specific data or in-depth analysis become the guidelines of the Interinstitutional Table that in October 2023 approves the new location in San Piero a Grado (still in the province of Pisa), specifying that the funds will be taken from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and promising that there will be compensatory works in the territories of Coltano and Pontedera. And above all, guaranteeing a transparent process going forward: 'The various planning phases will be carefully shared with all the bodies involved, and all the procedures envisaged by the regulations in force will obviously be respected, also taking into account the park's management plan,' reads the minutes signed by the mayor of Pisa Michele Conti (centre-right area), the president of the Tuscany Region Eugenio Giani (centre-left area) and the president of the Park Authority Lorenzo Bani (one of the first to propose the park as a potential site for the military base). Another promise that turned out to be in vain, because from the institutions - from the local to the national ones - silence fell, even blatantly refusing to answer the explicit requests for information from ordinary citizens and those regularly elected.

At the end of June 2024, the military base surreptitiously returned to the omnibus decree (also including the 'Ponte', the Mattei plan and much more) known as the 'Infrastrutture' decree brought forward by all the ministers of the Meloni government, but without the signature of the person directly concerned, 'Defence Minister Crosetto'. By now it is well established: the work that will serve to train and house the special corps of the Carabinieri, those that operate mainly abroad in conflict situations, the always active units that prepare Italian military interventions in war scenarios, are bureaucratically framed as a 'public security garrison'. For this reason, the base will be financed, outside the explicit military expenditure, with the money allocated in the budget for Public Buildings and taken from the Fund for Social Cohesion and Development. Specifically, in the decree, which was converted with a vote of confidence as early as August 2024, 20 million euros are taken from what were the reserves set aside to cope with increases in the cost of materials following the crisis in Ukraine and the pandemic-health crisis, and are used to open a special account, aimed at starting work on the construction site as soon as possible.

In the folds of the government papers, the No Base Movement discovers much more, details once again known to all political forces in Parliament, but concealed from media attention. The total cost of the work has risen from 190 million to 520 million (half a billion euros). The planned surface area doubles from the 70 hectares initially planned at Coltano to the total 140 spread between San Piero a Grado and the municipality of Pontedera. At least in part, what should be the compensatory works are unveiled, which in reality do not compensate for anything at all. In Tenuta Isabella, another predominantly green area and unfortunately also at hydrogeological risk in Valdera, an open-air firing range and a training track are planned: facilities built for the military and which it is said 'will also be available to civilians'. In Coltano, the reclamation of some historic buildings is included, but more than compensation it seems to be a matter of bonuses for the complicit local institutions: the Villa Medicea, currently managed by the local Proloco and owned by the municipality of Pisa; the abandoned Buontalenti stables, owned by the Region of Tuscany; the former Marconi Radio Station, owned by the State Property Office but in concession to the municipality of Pisa, which had casually regularised the contracts a few months before the decree. There is talk of reclamation, but it is not specified either what the new destinations will be, or with what participatory process the citizenship will be involved in deciding the future of these places, the reclamation of which has already been planned for over thirty years, regardless of any military works. Among the compensations in San Piero a Grado there is also the restructuring of the Bigattiera building, owned by the University of Pisa, which has been trying - unsuccessfully - to sell it off for over 15 years: it should be noted that the University of Pisa has not taken part in any discussions, nor does it have any role, except for the fact that it owns most of the land surrounding the area earmarked for the new war infrastructure. Another hoax that is told by government propaganda is that 120 million will be allocated to the reclamation of the area, but it is not said that this reclamation was already planned, as expressly stated in the Court of Auditors' resolution 'The reclamation of the Defence Sector' no. 14 of June 2022 regarding Cisam: 'The subsequent decommissioning activities are currently planned according to a financial line already outlined that foresees, as of today, a conclusion of the activities by 2032'. Lastly, there is talk of compensating for the cutting of thousands of centuries-old trees, recognised as part of Unesco's natural heritage such as the Tuscan Coastal Forest, and for this reason protected by special regulations and safeguards, with new plantings that, in actual fact, will take decades to recover the defence and ecosystem regulation function they have today. Not to mention that one of the riches of the nature reserve is its biodiversity, with particular regard to the reproduction of some rare bird species, which would be irremediably compromised both by the felling of the tall trees and by thehigh impact of human activity associated with the new armed settlement.

The Meloni government therefore continues to be determined to push ahead with this umpteenth military infrastructure, within the general framework of strengthening Tuscany as a nerve centre of global war logistics, and seeks ways to make the public accept this both with the farce of compensation and with a longer-term action, which has cultural roots in propagandising the culture of defence, the need for security, and thus to make the taxpaying public accept further military spending. In the meantime, the No Base Movement continues to curate counter-information to dispel the false myths promoted by the mainstream media and to animate the social and political forces that oppose the construction of this work. The movement's method continues to be based on openness and participation in activities that are mainly study and in-depth and that have led to significant protests in the last two years. In June 2022, tens of thousands of people marched under the scorching sun in the then little-known Coltano countryside and then, in October 2023, just a few days after the ratification of the new decision, thousands of people lined kilometres of barbed wire in the pouring rain, from the nearby huge American military base of Camp Darby to the Cisam nets, where a gap was symbolically opened to demonstrate the protesters' determination not to cede their territory to the war economy. Meanwhile, in June of this year, on the Tre Pini path, which separates the Avanzi centre (the centre of research on sustainable development at the University of Pisa) from the militarised area, the No Base Movement inaugurated a permanent peace garrison, aimed at the care, knowledge and monitoring of the projects underway and the defence of the territory.

In the future scenario, the challenge is to block the financing of the new military infrastructure, and therefore, looking at the 2024 budget, the No Base Movement has called for a new meeting in the square, on 13 September, under the Pisa City Hall, where political, trade union and social forces, both local and national, are called upon to take sides openly: are they on the side of the economy of peace or the economy of war? What could be done that is really useful for the social and human security of the people with 520 million euro as an alternative to a new Special Intervention Group headquarters? At stake is not only the specific issue of the base, but a radically different idea of local territorial development and approach to international conflict resolution. In order to reduce violence and the risk of armed conflict, is it necessary, as the government says, to invest in defence systems and the military sector, strengthening existing war logistics hubs and subtracting funds from social spending, or is it preferable to invest in reducing social and economic inequalities, financing cooperation and civil peacebuilding interventions?
The answer cannot be rhetorical, but must be collective and increasingly shared.