Campaign For A Living Venice

The Lagoon Authority finally has a budget and is preparing for the arrival of staff from the Water Magistrate’s Office. President Rossetto outlines the guidelines for the near future: a consortium for cutting-edge maintenance.

May 6, 2026

This morning, at the Lagoon Authority’s headquarters in Rialto, President Roberto Rossetto provided a series of significant updates regarding the future and present state of the agency — and, by extension, the protection of the Lagoon and the infrastructure tasked with that mission: the MOSE.

There are two main pieces of news: the formation (tomorrow, May 7) of a special-purpose company that will absorb the staff assigned to MOSE operations, and which will later become the Lagoon Authority’s in-house company; and the idea of a tender (international, but with significant security-related restrictions) to find an industrial partner to work alongside the Authority to handle the maintenance of the system — in an experimental and cutting-edge capacity.

But there is more: the Lagoon Authority, which has been managing MOSE since 2025 but still formally has only three employees/executives, obtained its long-awaited full operational decree in February 2026. It has approved the 2025 final budget and the 2026 preliminary budget, is beginning to stand on its own, and should shortly receive approval from the State Accounting Office for the transfer of 25 staff members from the Water Magistrate’s Office.

This transfer must be accompanied by a due diligence process to ensure the continuity of ongoing projects and contracts: the documents must clarify who is responsible for paying what, among the new Authority, the Consorzio Venezia Nuova (CVN, slated for liquidation), and the Water Magistrate’s Office, which is transferring some of its responsibilities to the new Authority.

The Consorzio Venezia Nuova’s Spin-off, Which Will Become an In-House Company

Returning to the news eagerly awaited by CVN employees and others: tomorrow, May 7, Consorzio Venezia Nuova will establish a special-purpose company — a spin-off — that will absorb the workers (employees of CVN, Comar, and Thetis) needed for MOSE operations. Toward the end of the year, this company will be transferred to the Lagoon Authority, becoming a fully-fledged in-house entity.

Between 120 and 150 employees are needed to cover all phases of operations. The question of staffing is being worked out carefully, Rossetto explained, but no one will be let go. Of the more than 200 current employees of CVN, Comar, and Thetis, 25 will move to ARPAV, while a portion of Thetis — currently undergoing negotiated restructuring — is up for sale and has received five expressions of interest.

A Partner for Experimental Maintenance: Continuous Research on MOSE

The highlight of this morning’s press conference, however, was the idea — or rather, the plan — for a tender to find an industrial partner (or a group of partners united in a consortium) to take on the long-standing challenge of maintaining the system. Rossetto reiterated that the maintenance must be experimental in nature, just as MOSE itself is experimental and without parallel anywhere in the world: alongside the maintenance work itself, the company must also conduct research into maintenance strategies.

The tender, the president stated, should be launched by summer. It will be highly complex because MOSE is a sensitive installation of national strategic importance: only companies embedded in the national security framework will be eligible to participate — companies with the appropriate expertise and research centers. The prize is substantial: co-management of maintenance funding (currently around 40 million euro per year) through 2034, and the opportunity to work on a hydraulic engineering project unlike anything else in the world. “This is the only existing climate change adaptation infrastructure in existence — it should be a source of national pride, and the research surrounding its maintenance should become one too,” Rossetto explained, noting that he is constantly in Rome making the case for this strategic importance to national decision-makers.

Source: Venezia Today