Differentiated autonomy, doubts about the essential levels: Amato, Bassanini, Gallo and Pajno resign from the Cassese Committee

Three months after its establishment, the Committee for the identification of the essential levels of services desired by the minister Robert Calderoli as a support body to accompany the reform of differentiated autonomy, it has to deal with the resignation of four members. And these are relevant names: two former presidents of the Constitutional Court such as Julian Amato And Franco Gallo, Franco Bassaniniformer Minister for Public Administration and Regional Affairs, e Alessandro Pajnowho was president of the State Council.

In a letter addressed to Calderoli ea Sabino Cassese, who leads the Committee, claim that they are “forced to acknowledge that the conditions no longer exist” for their participation in the work. And they list their motivations. At the centre, there is the definition of the essential performance levels (Lep): a step, they say, that requires “an overall assessment of the Lep that the country is actually able to finance, an assessment that cannot be made on a matter-by-material basis, because one would ultimately find himself in the position of not being able to finance the Lep necessary to ensure the exercise of civil and social rights in the matters left for last”. This evaluation, underline the four constitutionalists, “is up to Parliament” and “recourse to the criterion of historical expenditure does not solve the problem, because historical expenditure reflects territorial inequalities in the enjoyment of fundamental rights”.

That of the Lep is considered a decisive element of the entire process of the reform. The text approved by the Council of Ministers provides that the transfer of competences to the Regions will take place only after the relative needs and standard costs have been determined.

But the problems referred to in the letter from Amato, Bassanini, Gallo and Pajno would require intervention on Calderoli’s bill. This is the full text of the letter with the raised remarks:

Amato, Bassanini, Gallo and Pajno ensure that they are “fully aware of the importance that a complete and correct implementation of the constitutional provisions mentioned would have for the country, starting from the complete determination of the Lep necessary to ensure throughout the national territory the exercise of civil and social rights overcoming inequalities consolidated over time but no less unacceptable and less unconstitutional”. And they conclude: “We will continue to hope that over the next few months there will be a rethinking such as to bring the path of implementation of differentiated regional autonomy back to the tracks defined by the Constitution”.