Differentiated autonomy, Emiliano: 'All relieved by the Consulta's decision'

"They are all relieved" by the Constitutional Court's decision on autonomy "even the Prime Minister and members of the government majority, by having stopped a design that would have demolished national unity". This was said by the president of the Puglia Region, Michele Emiliano, during a press conference convened yesterday morning in Bari to comment on the outcome of the appeal against the Calderoli Law on differentiated autonomy, presented to the Constitutional Court in recent months by the Puglia Region and the regions of Tuscany, Sardinia and Campania.

"The Constitutional Court has cancelled several provisions of the Calderoli law," Emiliano stressed. "First and foremost, the possibility that subjects or blocks of subjects could be transferred, since the Court wisely considered that the devolution of autonomy should only concern specific legislative and administrative functions and should be justified in light of the constitutional principle of subsidiarity that regulates the distribution of functions between the state and the regions. This is a blow to the Calderoli law. Differentiated autonomy must be functional to improve the efficiency of the public apparatuses, to ensure greater political accountability and to better respond to the expectations and needs of citizens'.

"The judges of the Constitutional Court consider that the possibility of using inter-ministerial decrees to change the rates of the co-partecipation to the revenue from state taxes, provided for by the Calderoli law to finance the transferred functions, in the event of a discrepancy between the expenditure requirements and the trend of the same revenue, is also contrary to the Constitution.

Also censured by the Court was 'the optionality, rather than the dutifulness, for the devolved regions to contribute to public finance objectives, with a consequent weakening of the bonds of solidarity and unity of the Republic'.

But there is more. The rules of the Calderoli law that survived the Court's axe were interpreted in the sense desired by Puglia and the other plaintiff regions. So the knockout is total, both for the rules that have been cancelled for unconstitutionality, and for the remaining rules of the points that have been interpreted in accordance with the Constitution differently from what the government would have wanted.