Abstract

The essay focuses on the legal frame that has to be considered in Italy for the management of water resources, according to some general provisions of International and European Union law. After having broadly defined the extremely complex and still unsteady Italian legislative set, the author analyses the industrial development in Italy of the water services upon a competition law point of view, mostly by following the main cases that have been decided by the Autorità garante della concorrenza e del mercato. The discussion will end by considering the difficult pursuance of a balance between the need to protect the public services features and the opportunities to develop the market perspectives of the water services.