Between the Center and the Periphery: The Regional Elections and the Path to Fiscal Federalism

Abstract

The regional elections of 28-29 March 2010 saw the indisputable victory of the center-right, which took over the presidency of four regions that had previously been held by the center-left, but they also brought about significant changes in the power relations within the two main groupings. The Partito Democratico (PD, Democratic Party) and the Popolo della Libertà (PdL, People of Liberty) emerged from the elections noticeably weakened, while there were gains for other alliance members within the coalitions. The Lega Nord (LN, Northern League), which for the first time took over the presidency of two important regions (Piedmont and Veneto), made the greatest gains, but the results were also good for Italia dei Valori (IdV, Italy of Values), which succeeded in gaining a more or less stable vote after its excellent showing in the previous general and European elections. The Unione di Centro (UdC, Union of the Center) decided on a strategy of variable alliances with the main coalitions, enabling it to take full advantage of its pivotal position, but it will be difficult to repeat this at the national level, at least under the current electoral rules. Outside the two main groupings, the surprising showing of the MoVimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement), led by the satirist Beppe Grillo, is certainly worthy of attention.All this should be seen within the context of a marked fall in voter turnout, which dropped to its lowest-ever level of 63.6 percent,

Decentralization in Italy and the Troubles of Federalization

“…The absence of competing nationalisms differentiates Italy from other experiences of devolutionary federalization, like Spain (Keating and Wilson, 2010;Requejo, 2010). The so-called 'federal' reforms have always been 'imposed from above', a top-down dynamic typical of decentralization rather than federalization (Baldi and Tronconi, 2011). In Spain, instead, Autonomous Communities have developed through bottom-up dynamics (Moreno, 1997) whereby regions, supported by strong identities mobilized by NSWP, even in territories with no historical roots, could negotiate selfrule powers with the state.…”

“…Regions are neither represented in national law-making nor in constitutional amendment processes. Fiscal federalism is still on its way, but so far it lacks a truly federal content, focusing mainly on cuts in public spending, without devolving significant fiscal powers (Baldi and Tronconi, 2011;Massetti, 2012). Moreover, this intense season of reform has strengthened not just the regional level, consistently with a federal design, but also local governments, in continuity with the tradition of localism (Dente, 1997), so much so that the amended constitution refers to the Italian state as a "republic of autonomies", by placing regions, provinces and municipalities on equal footing (Groppi and Olivetti, 2003).…”

From the Change of the Pattern to the Change in the Pattern. The Trilateral Game in the Italian Intergovernmental Relations

“…After the 2001 Constitutional Reform, the relation between the State and the Regions used to be significantly conflictual (Baldi & Tronconi, ). That was mostly due to the ambiguous allocation of legal resources between the two levels in the concurrent law‐making competences.…”