Italy is a country crossed by a deep gap that separates the north and the south in most issues that have weight in the quality of life of citizens and social well-being. The north, rich and industrialized, could be similar in per capita income to some lander Germans. The south is more similar to neighbors like Albania due to the economic characteristics of many of its areas. No government has so far been able to reduce this inequality, but it seems that it will be the one led by the far-right Giorgia Meloni that will move even further away from that objective: the Executive plans to implement a system of asymmetrical autonomy that will allow the fiscal deficit of the north to be reduced. of the country, but that could aggravate the situation in the south, according to the opposition. On Monday, the Senate took a step towards this new system of distribution of powers, the first the country will have.
The law of “differentiated regional autonomy”, which seeks something similar to a federal structure, will allow regions to assume powers in areas such as education, health, energy and broad economic aspects. To do this, they will be able to use a part of the taxes that they now transfer to the State. That is the key to the historical denunciation of regions like Lombardy, which estimate the difference between what they pay in fees and what they receive in services at around 50,000 million euros. The Government believes that it will allow “overcoming the gaps between the territories and guaranteeing the same rights to all citizens.” The Upper House approved with 110 votes in favor, 64 against and 30 abstentions a text that must now be ratified in the Chamber of Deputies, where the Government, formed by the ultra Brothers of Italy (HdI) and the League, in addition to the conservative Forza Italia (FI), has an absolute majority.
The rule, which contemplates a lesser transfer of powers than that in force in Spain, was strongly contested by the opposition, which waved tricolor flags and sang the national anthem in protest of a measure that they consider harmful to the poorest regions of the country. “Meloni divides the country and sells the south to Salvini: they leave the most disadvantaged territories in the country in a dead end, instead of relaunching them for the good of all,” said the president of the populist 5 Star Movement (M5S) and former prime minister. Minister, Giuseppe Conte. “We will fight to stop it in the Chamber of Deputies, but we do not exclude any tool to counteract this law that divides Italy,” responded the secretary of the Democratic Party (PD), Elly Schlein, asked if her group will promote the collection of signatures to seek a referendum against a reform that would have “devastating effects,” in his words.
The same right-wing coalition, formed by Brothers of Italy, Forza Italia and the League, has different positions on this issue although they have now voted unanimously to approve it. Meloni's party is a nationalist party that has always denied the privileges of some regions and has defended the recipe for coffee for all. And Forza Italia grew during the Silvio Berlusconi years through a patronage system in the south of the country, where it still retains a large portion of voters whom he would not want to upset. The problem is that the three parties agreed at the beginning of the legislature on a major reform per party. And this, that of the League, will all have to be assumed if they want to carry out that of Justice, proposed by Forza Italia, and that of the semi-presidential system, of Brothers of Italy.
Five regions of Italy already have a special status similar to what all those who request it would now have (Sicily, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sardegna, Trentino-Alto Adige and Val d'Aosta). But it is difficult to think that other places like Campania, Calabria or Molise can assume new powers when they have much lower per capita incomes than in the north.
Italy is the European country with the most pronounced socioeconomic gap between its two extremes. The forecast released by Svimez, the institute that studies the development of the southern part of the country, anticipates that the GDP will be one percentage point lower in 2022. Life expectancy is already three years lower in Calabria than in cities like Trento; School dropout rates skyrocket as you move across the country towards the southern tip. Italy decided to cut the umbilical cord with the south – then much richer than today – as soon as it began its unification in 1847. In every sense. In fact, high speed ends in Naples.
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The president of Svimez, Luca Bianchi, is completely against this new law. “It is a path that leads to a greater division of the country, to fragmentation. It will mean an increase in internal inequalities and, in reality, no advantage for the northern regions because it will globally weaken the country's competitive capacity. It fragments fundamental elements of public policy such as energy, infrastructure, industrial policy or research. “It is regional neo-sovereignty in a world that always asks for more integrated policies,” he points out. Stefano Ceccanti, constitutional expert, does not believe that the constitutional fit could be a problem. But the new autonomous system “will not be possible to manage without a Senate to which these autonomies are accountable, similar to the Spanish case”; an instrument that does not exist right now.
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