Legislative Decree May 16, 2008, n. 85

Urgent provisions regarding the modification of government structures in application of Article 1, paragraphs 376 and 377 of  Law December 24, 2007 no. 244.

(published in the Official Gazette – General Series – no. 114 16 May 2008)

Art. 1, paragraph 7:

"The functions of the Ministry of Communications and its inherent financial, material and human resources, are transferred to the Ministry of Economic Development."

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The current Ministry of Communications framework (previously Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications), in layman's terms, stems from the reshaping of its central administration eadquarters, then self-governing, into a public, economic body.

Later on, it became a joint stock company called Poste Italiane, arising from the Ministry renewal, under the Act ( 29th January ) 1994 No. 71, as well as according to a suitable reorganization in telecommunications field by means of the Act ( 29th January ) 1992 No. 58. By this, tasks concerning telecommunications and telephone services were moved from State direct running to State holdings fields ( redefined by a fresh company structure as Italian Telecom in summer 1994 ) and actually widely liberalized.

GENERAL DUTIES

The Ministry of Communications 

• supervises postal, financial products and telecommunications services;
• acts personally as a regulator, as well as practising a policy of coordination, supervision and control, as by law enacted;
• stands for the government during community and international meetings;
• examines and considers, even by suitable research plans, in national and international field, economic, technical and legal evolution chances concerning posts and telecommunications fields;
• takes and publishes technical measures regarding the type approval and the utilization of terminal apparatus to be connected, directly or indirectly, to telecommunications networks granting, afterwards, the relevant licences;
• carries out type approvals for telecommunications apparatus;
• grants licences, authorizations and permissions, adopting the relevant provisions taking great care of their observance;
• determines technical regulations considering both users' interests and services quality levels;
• arranges plans for radiofrequencies' grant and allocation making sure of their observance.