EU rejects autonomy: risk of widening gaps and burden on public accounts
In its Country Report published on Wednesday, the European Commission makes a heavy judgment on differentiated autonomy
2' min read
2' min read
"The attribution of additional competences to the Italian regions entails risks for cohesion and public finances". The European Commission thus rejects differentiated autonomy, on the very day the measure became law. In the Staff Working Document that accompanies the specific recommendations for Italy and that on Wednesday 19 June led to the opening of the infringement procedure for excessive deficit, the European executive explains all the perplexities about the measure. In a paragraph devoted to the Mezzogiorno and its potential to be 'unlocked', the EU executive briefly recalls the terms of the law, referring to the text approved in the Senate in January and to the text that was under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies until the day before yesterday.
It would also increase institutional complexity
."While the draft law attributes specific prerogatives to the government in negotiations with the regions," Brussels stresses, "it does not provide any common frame of reference for assessing the regions' requests for additional competences. Moreover,' the document goes on to say, 'since the LEPs (Essential Levels of Performance) only guarantee minimum levels of services and do not cover all sectors, there are risks of further increasing regional inequalities. Allocating additional powers to the regions in a differentiated manner would also increase institutional complexity, with the risk of higher costs for both public finances and the private sector'.
Concern about the gap between the South and the Northern regions
.The concern about the regional disparities between the Centre-North and the South returns several times in the Commission's report, which repeatedly emphasises the persistence of the gaps at several levels, which is why - it states - "it remains crucial to accelerate the implementation of cohesion policy programmes by regions and ministries, along with strengthening administrative capacity, at the national level and especially at the territorial level". At the end of 2023 in Italy actual spending of the structural funds 2021-2027 was less than 1% out of a total of 42.2 billion resources of the ERDF and ESF+.
