Differentiated autonomy, taxes, roads, bridges (and ports): what will be the economic effects of the reform

Differentiated autonomy arrives in CDM

A reform destined to “split the country”, which risks becoming a “boomerang for the North” according to the opposition. A solution to “cut waste” and enhance the territories, according to the government. On Wednesday 1st February, the bill on differentiated autonomy, the historic workhorse of the League, arrives in the Council of Ministers. The bill proposed by the Minister for Regional Affairs, Roberto Calderoli, in ten articles aims to simplify procedures, speed up and de-bureaucratise procedures, for a distribution of powers that better conforms to the principles of subsidiarity and differentiation.

The attribution of functions is subordinated to the determination of the essential levels of services (“Lep”), which guarantee civil and social rights throughout the national territory. Even the business world is divided between those who believe that giving more skills to the regions can facilitate the development of territories and those who fear that, in an already two-speed Italy, the South will be definitively left behind. Among the skeptics the president of Confindustria, Carlo Bonomi, who underlined: «It must not be a theme of division of the country. We cannot afford it: this country cannot be divided: it has urgent problems to face”. According to the 10-article bill, the assignment of functions can only take place after the determination of the “essential levels of services”, the “Lep” defined with the Dpcm, within a year as required by the latest budget law.

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