Approved by the Council of Ministers the bill on differentiated autonomy, developed by the Minister for Regional Affairs, Roberto Calderoli. The approval, according to what we learn, took place amidst applause. On the text, to which some changes have been made compared to the draft issued to the Ministries on Monday evening. The Council of Ministers was convened for the preliminary examination of the bill on differentiated autonomy, presented by the Minister for Regional Affairs, Roberto Calderoli. Also on the agenda is the regulation on the donation of one’s own body and post-mortem tissues for the purposes of study, training and scientific research, as well as the bill for the ratification and implementation of the agreement with the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on police cooperation, done in Kyiv on 10 June 2021.
“Efficiency, merit, innovation, work, more rights for all citizens throughout Italy, fewer excuses for thieving or incompetent politicians. Autonomy approved in the Council of Ministers, another promise kept”. It is the text of the message that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Matteo Salvini sent in the chats of the parliamentarians and regional councilors of the Leagueimmediately after the approval of the bill on Autonomy.
Instead, the governors of the Regions are divided. On the one hand who, how Bonaccini and Emiliano, sharply criticize the bill; on the other other presidents, such as Fontana and Zaiawho support Minister Calderoli’s initiative.
THE MEASURE
The bill defined by the Minister for Regional Affairs Roberto Calderoli is a battleground between the majority and the opposition. And in the center-right it is above all the League which was preparing to celebrate the approval of the text in the Council of Ministers, twenty days from the Regionals in Lazio and Lombardy, one of the three regions that have already started the process to obtain functions hitherto performed by the State.
According to bill of 10 items, the attribution of the functions can take place only after the determination of the essential levels of services, the Lep defined with the Prime Minister’s Decree, within a year as envisaged by the latest budget law. The process for the agreement between the Region (also with special statute) and the State will last at least 5 months, including the 60 days for the examination of the Chambers. According to Calderoli’s draft, the commissions should have been expressed, but among the “touch-ups” decided in the technical meeting in preparation for the Council of Ministers – it seems also on the input of Giorgia Meloni – one should opt for a guideline voted in the Chamber.
THE AGREEMENTS
The agreements last up to 10 years: they can be renewed or terminated earlier, with a notice (of the State or Region) extended from 6 to 12 months, to avoid misalignments with the school year, with reference to subjects relating to education. Equalization measures are also envisaged to avoid economic imbalances between the Regions that adhere to differentiated autonomy and those that do not. It is the risk that the premier wants to avoid. “We are not resigned to the idea that there are Serie A and B territories and services,” Giorgia Meloni said in recent days.
Autonomy “will improve” the country and “is convenient for everyone, the municipalities of central and southern Italy would earn more”, he assures Matthew Salvini. “The Regions will have more resources and more powers with autonomy, to manage essential services for citizens, starting naturally from health care – is the comment of Silvio Berlusconi -. Every year 200,000 citizens travel to Lombardy from other regions for surgery. Therefore, we must guarantee healthcare of the highest quality for everyone”.
THE VOICES FROM THE REGIONS
For the president of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fountain, “this reform doesn’t break a damn thing, it simply asks that the tasks that the State performs today be performed by the Regions, obtaining the figures that the State spends today. So it’s just a different administrative organization”. The Lombard governor reflects that Calderoli’s project “absolutely does not speak of the subjects, it speaks of the procedure that will have to be followed to achieve the application of a part of the Constitution. I believe that it is a step for the moment that must only lead to the preparation of the modalities, then on the subjects we will discuss”.
The president of the Emilia-Romagna Region and candidate for the secretariat dem Stefano Bonaccini goes on the attack: “The Calderoli draft is really wrong and therefore nothing will be done about it. If they want to go ahead, we will mobilize a lot of people in the country”. Bonaccini, however, is confident that in the end “nothing will be done about it”. A belief that is based on “coldness in the Government; the Brothers of Italy is a very centralist party, so I don’t think they welcome this proposal”. And “can a country risk having 20 different public instructions? We would really make the world laugh. I don’t know if Minister Calderoli is realizing it”, adds Bonaccini. “We already have a country at too many different speeds.”
In Puglia, on the other hand, the wrath of the governor Emiliano is recorded. “We are deeply outraged by this idea of wanting to create differentiated autonomy before the elections in Lombardy” to avoid “making the League look bad”, said the governor, a guest on SkyTg24. According to Emiliano, therefore, the government would be accelerating the implementation of the Autonomy “just so as not to make the League look bad”.
From Veneto, the governor Luca Zaia note that today is the first day of school. “Then it will be a crescendo – he adds – towards modernity, to give life to the path that the founding fathers already envisaged. It is a choice of modernity and responsibility; it is absolutely not about ‘starving’ the southern regions or dividing the Italy”. It will not be the end of our country, she points out, inviting us to think of Germany and the United States, which “are perceived as large undivided nations but have true federalism”.
According to Vito Bardi, governor of Basilicata“a step forward has been taken, but now it is necessary to give importance to the essential levels of services to bridge the gap between the various areas of the country”. Bardi said he was satisfied because “the proposals of the presidents of the South have been accepted and above all the historic expenditure which penalized the Noon”.
“We are in favor of the requests of the Regions which ask for greater levels of autonomy. I do not believe that these requests represent in any way an obstacle to our autonomy, which has solid statutory foundations and international anchorages”. He told ANSA the president of the Autonomous Province of Trento, Maurizio Fugatti. “The growth of autonomy in other territories can represent an important opportunity for good self-government, of which we are a model. Furthermore, this also legitimizes our autonomy in the face of centralist pressures”, added Fugatti.
“This is a law that has been expected for some time, not only by virtue of the constitutional provisions but also of a referendum that has seen the Regions as protagonists. So I think it is in line with a path that must be followed in any case”. And how much said the president of the Umbria Region, Donatella Tesei, regarding the bill on differentiated autonomy. “As the Umbria Region – he told ANSA – we participated in discussions with Minister Calderoli who illustrated the framework law to all the Regions, because in reality it is a framework law. Within this legislation, the Regions will be able to request for differentiated autonomy in various subjects, in all those envisaged by the Constitution, but also in part, and of course we as the Umbria Region are making a whole series of assessments to understand what is of interest to us”.
The Ligurian governor Giovanni Toti he observes that “all those who are tearing their clothes apart in these hours should remember that the margins of differentiated autonomy between territories are one of the prerogatives provided for by the fifth Title of our Constitution since the early 2000s and has never been implemented”. “The performance levels are already very different today without any autonomy – recalled Toti -, due to a centralism that has often made the wrong choices and due to local ruling classes who have not been able to exploit their territories as they should have and could”.
POLITICAL REACTIONS
In the meantime, criticisms are coming from the opposition, above all for the choice to discuss the bill before the Lep are there, to entrust their definition to the Prime Minister, as well as not to allow Parliament to participate in the definition of the agreements. “Article 8 confirms all our suspicions – attacks the dem Francesco Boccia -: from the application of the bill ‘no new or greater burdens on public finance arise’. It is proof that they do not invest a cent to reduce inequalities”. For the deputy and candidate to lead the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, “it would be appropriate for the Southern Regions and those led by the Democratic Party to ask for an urgent convocation of the State-Regions Conference. The State-Regions Conference ignored and humiliated by the government and by Calderoli who did not want to make a preventive passage with the vote of the Regions”. . “Today Calderoli’s differentiated autonomy arrives in the Council of Ministers, bypassing the confrontation with the Regions and with Parliament, to advance a bill that divides the country”.
The attack of the CGIL
The project on differentiated autonomy, with the bill expected in the afternoon in the CDM, “is wrong and goes against the country”, which “is already divided, it already has too many inequalities. It is not what it needs”. Thus the secretary general of the CGIL, Maurizio Landini, on the sidelines of the congress of the CGIL Rome and Lazio, underlining that this “logic weakens the country, even in relations with other states, risks calling into question the relationship with the social partners, because it has not been discussed with anyone, and it demeans the role of Parliament”.
Source: Ansa
I have been working in the news website industry for over 4 years now, first as a reporter and then as an editor. I enjoy writing about politics news and am also an author. I try to cover a lot of different angles when it comes to my articles so that readers can get a well-rounded understanding of the story.
