There is much talk of the savings that will derive from the abolition of the Senate, from the definitive cancellation of the provinces and of the Cnel, estimated at around 500 million euros.
But the Reform does not only affect the costs of politics. It touches very profound aspects of our economic and social policies, and from this point of view it is worth much, much more than 500 million.
How much is it worth being able to make strategic works that can be completed in a short time rather than getting bogged down in appeals that last up to 20 years?
How much is it worth being able to reorganize our ports and airports according to criteria of national competitiveness rather than local political division and propaganda?
How much is it worth being able to eliminate the dozens of representative offices that the regions have abroad? And being able to coordinate the efforts of trade fairs and missions by perhaps organizing a few well-done events rather than dozens of regional or provincial micro-events?
How much is it worth being able to coordinate the disbursement of unemployment benefits with real training and job search activities? Or being able to coordinate (and control) training activities around unique professional profiles that do not change from region to region?
These are just some of the questions we should ask ourselves when we think of the economic repercussions of the Constitutional Reform approved by Parliament and now subjected to a referendum. And they concern a part of the Reform that has been little or not at all told and explained to citizens: the part that modifies Title V, i.e. the relationship between the State and the Regions.
A section already modified in 2001 in a more regionalist sense with respect to the original text, to give space to the federalist ideas which were very much in vogue in the Italian political debate during the XNUMXs.
The 2001 Reform, although inspired by good intentions (bringing the institutions closer to the citizens by giving greater autonomy to the territories), has however paved the way for many problems: the overlapping of roles between the State and the Regions has in fact fueled confusion and a growing dispute between the State and the Regions, not to mention duplication, lack of coordination, an increase in waste (just remember how regional bodies and agencies have proliferated to cover all the new functions: tourism, foreign trade, attraction of investments and many others, not to mention of the dozens of regional mini-embassies abroad – 2010 were counted in 178).
The data on litigation are the most concrete evidence of the shortcomings of the 2001 Reform and of the need to get a handle on it. From 2000 to 2015, the incidence of Constitutional Court judgments related to the State-Regions conflict increased eight times. If in 2000 this accounted for 5% of the Court's rulings, in 2015 the weight exceeded 40% (after having reached peaks of 47% in previous years).
This means that in recent years almost half of the activity of the Constitutional Court has been clogged by appeals from the State or Regions which were fighting to claim this or that jurisdiction. Appeals that often took years before reaching a sentence, while in the meantime all the subjects called into question – investors, institutions and private citizens – remained uncertain about the constitutionality and therefore about the applicability of some rules.
Not only has this dispute blocked important works, slowing down modernization processes, causing increases in the costs of both infrastructure and services, but in many cases it has prevented or weakened the adoption of national policies in important matters such as tourism, foreign trade, employment services, social policies, labor policies and professional training.
The hope is to give elements to fully understand a Reform that has been awaited for decades, and voted by Parliament after six readings, thousands of amendments and a very long parliamentary and media debate. A debate which, unfortunately, has excluded some of the most important topics with the greatest impact on the economy and on the life of the country.
