An Evitable Privatization? The Case of Italian Telecommunications

This article analyzes the privatization of Telecom Italia as part of a broader historical evaluation of public ownership in a high-technology strategic sector. Drawing on archival material from Italian state-owned enterprises as well as national and European institutions, it traces the reorganization of the telecommunications conglomerate in the 1980s and 1990s, the European regulatory framework in which it unfolded, and the company’s post-divestment trajectory, thereby questioning the inevitability of privatization. The evidence shows that, before privatization, Telecom Italia had already become a profitable, technologically advanced, and internationally competitive firm under public ownership. The decision to divest reflected domestic political and fiscal priorities, as the European liberalization of the telecommunications market reshaped the rules while leaving member states a margin of maneuver. By comparing the public and privatized phases of the company’s development, the article contributes to the historical reassessment of state-owned enterprises and challenges the assumption that ownership change was functional to securing efficiency and competitiveness in the late twentieth-century telecommunications industry.