I rapporti negoziali degli enti di gestione dei porti e il Codice dei contratti pubblici

The Managing Bodies of Seaports' Contractual Activity and the Codice dei Contratti Pubblici. This paper analyses the area of subjection of the seaports managing bodies' contractual activity to the EU directives on public procurement, transposed by the Codice dei contratti pubblici. The article illustrates the external limits drawn by the notion of 'Seaport' defined by the mentioned legislation; then it focuses on the mismatch between the notion of concession defined by the EU directives and the homonym notion used by the Italian law concerning seaports administration. After showing that the conclusions are different depending on whether we consider cargo-handling operations and passengers services or services of general economic interest, the paper highlights that to face many interpretative doubts, firstly, it is necessary to distinguish the ports directly administered by the State or regional authorities and ports managed by Port Authorities; then, it is necessary to solve the problem of qualifying the Port Authorities as non-economic public bodies or as economic entities.