Incentives in Sicily: the Administrative Justice Council gives the green light to the calls for applications
The Joint Chambers of the CGA, presided over by Ermanno de Francisco: the absence of an opinion on the councillors’ decrees does not in itself constitute grounds for illegality. Measures worth 200 million a year are safe
Key points
The absence of a prior opinion from the Council of Administrative Justice (CGA) does not automatically call into question the regional implementing decrees or the expenditure procedures already underway.
This is the principle affirmed by the Joint Chambers of the CGA, chaired by Ermanno de Francisco, in its final opinion No. 191 of 2026, adopted at the meeting on 2 July and forwarded to the Region on 29 July. The ruling responds to the query submitted by the Regional Councillor for the Economy, Alessandro Dagnino, via the Legislative and Legal Office of the Regional Presidency.
The doubt arising from the previous opinion
The issue had taken on a significance far greater than that of the individual measure on incentives. The doubt had arisen from an incidental passage contained in the previous interim opinion No. 138 of 2026, concerning the removal of the limit provided for under the European ‘de minimis’ scheme for the 150 million measure intended for new permanent hires. That passage had highlighted the potentially regulatory nature of the inter-departmental decree and, consequently, the need for prior review by the CGA.
A broad interpretation could have extended not only to employment incentives, but also to numerous regional decrees already issued without the consultation process, fuelling fears that expenditure procedures involving hundreds of millions of euros might also be open to challenge. The new opinion now removes what could have constituted an independent ground for illegality, whilst naturally leaving open the possibility of examining any other defects in the individual measures.
When the CGA’s opinion is mandatory
According to the CGA, the regulatory nature of an act must be determined on the basis of its actual content and not its formal title. Article 9 of Legislative Decree No. 373 of 2003, however, makes the opinion mandatory only for regulations of the ‘regional government’, that is, those issued by the president following a resolution by the executive committee. This obligation does not automatically extend to decrees issued by regional councillors, unless a specific regional provision stipulates otherwise.
