The recent declarations of the mayor of Siderno, Maria Teresa Fragomeni, on the risk that the latest economic maneuver will make the Municipalities and, in particular, the Municipalities of the South pay an excessively high price, have the merit of putting the need to favor the processes of inter-municipal associationism back at the center of the regional and local political debate, which must not necessarily determine the birth of a single large Municipality, but can also enhance the tools of cooperation and collaboration.
The reduction of inter-municipal fragmentation strengthens the system of local autonomies and is necessary to consolidate the democratic system in Calabria. There is a strong affinity with the words of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, who at the National Assembly of Italian Municipalities, held in Bologna just a few weeks ago, received a standing ovation when he reaffirmed the need to enhance the principle of municipal autonomy, understood as a “republican value” and as the “foundation of democracy”. The President of the Republic himself has repeatedly underlined that the Municipalities represent the first defense of democracy, the place where the citizen concretely exercises his rights and recognizes the Republic through the closeness of local institutions.
The words of the Head of State take on particular relevance in complex territories such as Calabria, where the fragility of local administrative systems, combined with profound socio-economic critical issues and the pressure exerted by organized crime, makes the democratic fabric more vulnerable than in other Italian regions. It is a challenge that concerns not only Calabria but the entire country, because the quality of national democracy depends on the solidity of its local institutions, but, especially in this region, the strengthening of the Municipalities is an act of defense of democracy, it is a political and cultural investment, which is expressed in the fight against inequalities, in the fight against marginality and in the relaunch of territorial development.
The importance of the Municipalities as the first level of government and the place where the effectiveness of rights is achieved, recalled by President Mattarella, is a central element of the Italian autonomist constitutional tradition in line with the history of European autonomies. In this framework, the role of mayors and city councils is not simply administrative: it is political and community-based.
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*Professor of Territorial Autonomy Law at the University of Calabria