«I’m sorry, I think that the center-right now risks an electoral boomerang not only in the South but also in the North. As governor I will do everything to defend my land and my citizens.” The president of the Calabria Region, Roberto Occhiuto, said this, commenting on the green light for differentiated autonomy. “With this law approved without even an adequate debate, I fear that our coalition will not be able to compensate for the concerns of voters in the South with a few more votes, perhaps, in the North,” says Occhiuto. «This law had to be built like a train with three carriages: Autonomy, the guarantee of LEP financing throughout the national territory, and then equalization. Instead they only filled one carriage, and that’s not good”, claims the governor. For Occhiuto “the law was passed overnight and quickly to give a sop to a majority political force”.
Schifani’s reply
“I’m not worried. I do not share all this concern of President Occhiuto also because it has been discussed within the party for some time. He himself boasted in the past how FI had made positive changes to the initial Calderoli text. I would like to remind you of something. We are talking about the application of an article of the Constitution introduced in January 2001 by the center left with only a three vote advantage in the Senate. If the left has regretted it, we take note of it.” The president of the Sicily Region Renato Schifani said this in the direct line of Rai News24 hosted by Roberto Vicaretti.
«I don’t share all this concern of President Occhiuto – continues the Sicilian governor – also because this issue has been discussed within the party for some time. He himself boasted in the past how FI had made positive changes to Calderoli’s initial text. We are talking about the application of an article of the Constitution that was introduced by the centre-left, this is history. If the left regrets it, we take note of it. The text has been significantly improved with some corrective measures also thanks to FI.”
«Differentiated autonomy doesn’t break anything. Corrective boundaries have also been introduced thanks to FI which place an intelligent brake on the implementation of this regionalism. We will explain well how things will go. However, the South must shake off this tendency to blame itself. I have been governing Sicily for almost 2 years. The problem is spending capacity. I took office and found 1 billion and 400 million of the European social fund unspent because the administrative machine was unable to do so.” The president of the Sicily Region Renato Schifani said this in the direct line of Rai News24.
Differentiated autonomy, a method to monitor its effects
A methodology has been developed to monitor the effects of differentiated autonomy, which will give the first results as soon as it is granted to one or more Regions. It is the fruit of the work of CREA Sanità (Centre for Applied Economic Research in Healthcare), which today presented the 2024 Report ‘Opportunities for Health Protection: Regional Performances’. In a first phase, CREA explains, the dynamics on ten indicators in groups of Regions were calculated and then compared for the period 2017-2022: the group of Provinces/Autonomous Regions or those with special statute (Sicily, Sardinia, Valle d ‘Aosta, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige with Trento and Bolzano) towards the others, those in the Recovery Plan (Abruzzo, Calabria, Campania, Lazio, Molise, Puglia, Sicily) always towards the others and that of the Regions which they requested differentiated autonomy in 2017 (Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia Romagna), once again towards the others. The results were aggregated into areas of improvement and worsening, and were summarized, for each group of Regions, in a numerical index: the Weighted Synthetic Index (ISP), a measure of the relationship between the areas of worsening and improvement in the period considered. The value 0 indicates an overall compensation between the regional improvements and worsening, the value 1 an improvement for all the Regions of the group and the -1 their worsening. In the first comparison, for the Provinces/Autonomous Regions or those with Special Statute the ISP is 0.38 and 0.40 for the others. Therefore, in the period 2017-2022, CREA states, “the dynamics in the Provinces/Autonomous Regions or with Special Statute was (slightly) worse than in the other groups”. In the second comparison, the Regions in the Recovery Plan recorded an ISP equal to 0.44, compared to 0.37 for the others: “the Regions in the Recovery Plan fared better than the others”. Finally, in the third comparison, the Regions that requested differentiated autonomy recorded an ISP of 0.36 compared to 0.40 for the others.