“In Italy, 70% of the municipalities have fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, more than 40% have fewer than 2,000. The vast majority of the municipalities are therefore made up of small or very small entities, of increasingly depopulated and irrelevant inland municipalities to supra-municipal bodies, which by uniting could however combine strengths and talents and become more significant”.
The photograph of the situation is by Ferruccio Giovanetti, an entrepreneur active in the social and healthcare sector for over thirty years.
Giovanetti, mergers are a thorny field…
“I have the feeling that everyone appreciates the advantages of municipal mergers only as long as the municipalities of others are involved. We are well aware of the savings, the benefits, the concessions, as long as we don’t have to deal with the rust that a system of division of the now dated territory is brought with it, and we lose clarity when an important part of our identity, such as the place where we grew up, seems to suddenly disappear, as if with an administrative merger a community could lose its very essence Obviously this is not the case.”
Any examples?
“Let’s talk about my territory, the Alta Valconca: the municipalities of Mercatino Conca, Monte Grimano Terme and Monte Cerignone, share a common history, a territory rich in similar attractions and challenges. With a view to sustainable development and strengthening of services offered to citizens I find that the opportunity of the merger is a viable and desirable path for our reality. How else could three communities that barely have a thousand inhabitants each manage a good school service, functioning road connections and the different needs of one. such a similar population? We ask for safe and efficient roads, the defense and valorisation of our territory, the strengthening of sustainable tourism and business. The rest are needs shared with all citizens of all Italian municipalities: services, schools , safety, environment, culture. All things that would benefit from the economy of scale resulting from a merger.”
Every time the topic of mergers comes up, however, the chorus of no goes up…
“The loss of local autonomy has always been the bogeyman raised to intimidate the undecided who then easily take refuge in sterile parochialism. But, if we are talking about autonomy, what autonomy can a community without a voice have? Union generates a more flourishing, more lively and, there is no denying it, more influential with the regional authorities. Why persist in having municipal councils that manage a single mayor, a single council, a single local police the obligation to create the not very functional “multi-classes”, and a common, single, efficient transport service. All without losing the locality of certain services, given that local municipalities are envisaged with the main offices serving the citizens”.
Isn’t it gluttony that makes the contributions granted?
“The savings are objective and significant state contributions are foreseen by law for the merging municipalities, with extraordinary revenues for the following ten years. For the municipalities merged after 2018, this is 60% of the state transfers in 2010, with a maximum limit of 2 million euros, plus regional contributions and incentives fear of losing autonomy, but rather with the awareness of becoming stronger”.
