And here, with the advent of the centre-right government, but it would be better to say right-centre government, those old intentions of the propaganda battle left, and we will say fortunately, in the state of power by the secretary of the League Matteo Salvini to the times of the yellow-green government experience.
It is a classic argument of so-called "mass distraction", significant of the inability of this executive to address the pressing problems that face the daily life of the population who live and work every day with huge physical, economic and moral sacrifices. But, in the end, what does it matter? When the priority seems to be the search for consensus at any cost, the result can only be dramatically consequential.
And yet, despite the "deaf ears" that would seem to distinguish the new center of Italian power, it appears indubitable that the opposition to the design of "differentiated autonomy" is marked and prevalent , especially when the measure, far from consolidating the unitary and national character of the "Italian system" precisely in a moment of extremely serious democratic disturbance, risks carrying forward a path of irremediable regional fragmentation, undermining national unity at its roots, both on the geographical and naturalistic level properly understood, and on the abstract ideological one.
And even if it can answer concretely that the realization of the regional specialty may have given rise to more or less "happy" epilogues in the various Regions aspiring to differentiated autonomy, nevertheless, in each of them, albeit to different extents, they seem be present, dangerously present, those ideological characteristics suitable to allow the involution towards a system of government distinct and separate from the one operating and in force in the rest of the national territory. Circumstance, the latter, to be avoided without room for discussion, since, reasoning differently, we would expose ourselves to the risk of implementing inequalities without actually guaranteeing in any way the protection of the rights of all citizens before the law.
Let's be clear: the request for "autonomy" , with all due respect to the "Motor Regions" of the North, has complete meaning only where justified by reason of the specificity of the reference territory which the same actually do not seem to have, since the link between the Region and Special Statute and Region with Ordinary Statute are actually presented, and it could not be otherwise, less stringent than the assonance between the two phrases themselves would seem to suggest.
The difference, essentially, lies solely in the adjectival qualification that accompanies the main noun ("Region"). In fact, and the circumstance cannot be relegated to a condition of marginality, in principle the possible provision of a "special autonomy" did not form part of a broad regionalization plan, but was conceived, and rightly so, as an element of response to the need for preservation of national unity with reference to island and border territories in order to nullify any subversive ambitions that could emerge within them.
The specialty is, and must remain, in the restricted terms of a single exception in the Italian regulatory context in order to be able to respond effectively to peculiar, but not necessarily uniform, needs for autonomy justified by an incisive social demand as a reflection of a strongly felt cultural identity. Certainly, the Sardinian experience , for reasons of a different kind and nature, probably linked to the decisions of ill-wised management classes and little inclined to valorise the aspects of relevance, cannot be used as an example , and it would be better, with good likelihood, to transform , having arrived at this point, the Sardinian regulatory context in the "ordinary" sense given the acclaimed failure of a political orientation at least apparently conducted on the bed of the ideology devoted to "compensation for damages from underdevelopment".
But even disregarding the bitter reflection, the need to determine, in general, a structural evolution of the Italian legal system in the unique and relevant sense of a "solidarity regionalism" would seem to appear in all its undeniable relevance federal structure of the State certainly based on regional autonomy, but also on the distribution of resources inspired by a principle of mutual solidarity. The real challenge is only that aimed at combining solidarity regionalism with the highest principle of national unity.
The "variable geometry regionalism" that Matteo Salvini's League would like to conceive and implement represents the umpteenth attempt to quench the secessionist "thirst" of the most extreme part of its reference electorate since, if we consider the premises, it risks leading to an unconstitutional implementation of the regulatory provisions on regional autonomy which, from a factor of national cohesion, would change into a factor of disintegration of the Italian perimeter territory.
Let's face it bluntly: the real danger lies in the attempt to favor the parameter of the so-called "residual tax" advocated by Regions such as Lombardy and Veneto since it is aimed at retaining a much more significant part of tax collection in their territories. The request for differentiated autonomy of the rich northern regions would seem to be aimed at this alone, without realizing, the latter, that a claim of this kind, in the medium to long term, would end up being unsustainable on a purely financial level.
In short, either we want to be a united and supportive Italy, or something else to be defined and implemented in the context of a process of redefining state borders in terms of subtraction. The Meloni government should stop and reflect before "shooting zero" on sensitive issues for the country's democratic stability. But is it really not possible to carry out a complete reflection on the circumstance of why differentiated regionalism has not succeeded up to now, even in more favorable political contexts, in finding complete implementation in our legal system? Why is there no attempt to seek democratic and inter-institutional involvement useful to avoid that Parliament, in the worst case scenario, is only called upon to ratify agreements already concluded elsewhere? The lack of clarity on the point together with the ill-concealed attempt to "abandon" (at least that's how it would seem) the regions of Southern Italy to their fate probably constitute the out of tune element of a governmental path aimed at natural selection useful for guaranteeing the "survival of the most loud". Is this the path we want to take? What would become of Southern Italy and the Islands ? Is a two-speed Italietta conceivable? Are these the true faces and sides of the right-centre government?
Josephine Di Salvatore
(Lawyer – Nuoro)
