The government decided to sell Alitalia because the airline needs to be run as a private enterprise, Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa told the Senate on Wednesday.
"Alitalia must be totally run as a regular business and according to the rules of business," the minister said.
According to Padoa-Schioppa, the government made a "brave" decision to sell at least 30.1% of Alitalia, which opened the way for the state to sell all of its 49.9% stake in the airline.
This is because by Italian law whoever holds more than 30% of a company's capital must make a public offer for the rest.
The decision to sell, he admitted, was also a recognition "of the state's lack of success as a stockholder and as a regulator. It was unable to guide the airline's transition from a state monopoly to a company able to compete in the open market".
Alitalia's current crisis, Padoa-Schioppa told the Senate, "is the result of a number of causes, from political interference to union fragmentation and unrest".
"The government, company management and unions were collectively unable to give adequate responses to growing competition and sector problems, including fuel prices," the minister observed.
"This was then made worse by a failure to modernise air transport infrastructures, inefficient regulating procedures and local and private interests prevailing over the national one," he added.
Turning his attention to the national carrier's privatization, Padoa-Schioppa said an advisor would be named within the week and the guidelines for bids published before the end of the year, while the whole operation would take some six months.
What was important, he observed, was that the airline went into the right hands because any problems regarding employment levels could be resolved through the success of the airline's turnaround.
Padoa-Schioppa also all but ruled out the state retaining a 'golden share' in Alitalia, by which it would maintain veto power on key management decisions.
"I doubt very much the European Union would allow this and I have my own doubts on the efficiency of such a tool," the minister said.
In reference to the airline's accounts, Padoa-Schioppa confirmed that from 1996 through the first nine months of 2006, Alitalia lost 3.1 billion euros.
From 1998 to 2005, he added, Alitalia had benefited from a total of 4.52 billion euros in additional resources through measures such as capital increases, rights issues and floating convertible bonds.
