Milan Cortina, towards a separate company for the Paralympics
The Paralympics in Milan and Cortina 2026 will be managed independently, with a different structure from that of the Milan-Cortina Foundation, which manages the Games. And above all, they will have an extraordinary commissioner, whose name has yet to be decided. It could be the same CEO of the Foundation, Andrea Varnier, but another name could also come out of the government's hat. This decision will be defined more precisely by a decree-law of the Ministry of Infrastructure, which has not yet reached its final draft. What is for now a draft decree could be reworked, also on the instructions of the Ministry of Sport. The final decree could arrive in the Council of Ministers in a couple of weeks.
The decision depends on the fact that the government intends to favour the Paralympics, which need ad hoc work, from organisational aspects to transport and the revision of architectural barriers. A commissioner who thinks exclusively about this, with possible derogations from the ordinary law, can help the realisation. In addition, there could also be an aspect related to the accounts, seeing that placing the Paralympics in a separate structure makes it possible to lighten the budget of the Milan-Cortina Foundation. More generally, the government and the MIT are studying 'urgent measures to guarantee continuity in the construction of strategic infrastructures and in the management of public contracts, the correct functioning of the rail and road transport system, the orderly management of port and maritime state property, as well as the implementation of unpostponable fulfilments connected to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and the participation in the European Union in the field of infrastructures and transport'.
It is in this context that the urgent interventions for the 'realisation of the functional works for the holding of the Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina 2026' and 'for the holding of the sports events' are added. In the meantime, the Milan-Cortina 2026 Foundation has recently approved the annual budget, with a total budget of 1.7 billion, of which more or less one third is ensured by IOC funds, one third by tickets and merchandising, and one third by sponsorships. A balanced budget is a target that can be estimated at the end of the event, from March 2026. From the financial point of view, the guarantee for a possible red balance lies with the local authorities. As far as the works to be realised in Milan are concerned, there is still the problem of the 100 million extra costs of the Olympic Village and Palaitalia to be resolved.
