On the one hand the bill, already sent to Palazzo Chigi, on the other the control room on the essential levels of assistance, envisaged by the maneuver, which could be operational within a month. The work on differentiated autonomy “can finally come to life”, exults Roberto Calderoli. The text sent to the Presidency of the Council for Calderoli takes up the indications of the Regions and the “reflections born from the first discussion in Parliament and with the other interlocutors”. The Northern League minister’s hope is that the law can come out of the Council of Ministers with preliminary approval and then be sent to the Unified Conference in January and that it can be approved as a bill in January, to then be discussed by Parliament”.
Calderoli: let’s not split Italy
The League would like to rush into autonomy, even if Calderoli himself continues to launch reassurances that he has no intention of “split the country” with the transfer of functions and resources to the northern regions. And he takes advantage of the train of the budget law to push the definition of the “essential levels of services” (Lep), that is the minimum measure of public services to be guaranteed throughout Italy. The rule studied at the Ministry for Regional Affairs and Autonomies creates a control room on the Lep at Palazzo Chigi, which within a year will prepare the Dpcm that will define the essential levels of services and the related costs and standard needs in the subjects that can move from the center to regions with differentiated autonomy on the basis of article 116, third paragraph of the Constitution. As for the timing, the first transfers will arrive in January 2024. All in agreement with the Unified Conference and with the parliamentary opinion.
The essential levels of performance
The essential levels of benefits aim to be a guarantee for the less advanced areas because, as the new rule included in the text of the budget law also states, they measure “the expenditure threshold constitutionally necessary to disburse social benefits of a fundamental nature” as well as to regulate the financial relations between the State and the autonomies and «to promote a fair and efficient allocation of resources connected to the Pnrr».
Bonaccini: thus autonomy splits Italy and penalizes the South
On the other hand, the Democratic Party protests because the text has not really been shared with the Regions before. «The autonomy proposed by the right divides Italy and penalizes the South. The Government will stop and go back to dealing with the Regions and with the mayors instead of making wrong choices from above. Italy doesn’t need divisions because it already has enough fractures. Instead, we need a just and supportive autonomy, which simplifies the life of citizens and businesses, which brings choices closer to the territory, which allows resources to be planned and managed better and investments made more quickly”, writes the governor of the FB on Facebook. Emilia Romagna and candidate for the secretariat of the Democratic Party Stefano Bonaccini, for whom overcoming territorial gaps – on a par with economic and social, gender and generational ones – is an absolute priority for a country that travels too fast, he concludes.
Southern mayors to Mattarella: do not exacerbate disparities
The mayors of the South are also concerned. Some of them have sent a letter to the head of state in which they thank the President «for having referred, in his speech at the end of the year, to the Constitution and to the injustices caused by the differences between the various territories of our Village”. Hence the request “to suggest to the political forces of our country to envisage, as the first point of their political agenda, measures that can reduce these distances”. More than 100 first citizens have already decided to send an email to the Quirinale with the same text, asking to “urge the parties to intervene on these disparities rather than insisting on a project of differentiated autonomy which will only exacerbate them”.