These two entities, together with Vibo Valentia, shared a single territorial entity until the tripartition, an event that gave rise to a dispute that lasted twenty years and was still ongoing until yesterday.
The origin of the dispute dates back to 2018, when the Administrative Court of Calabria forced the intermediate body of Crotone to comply with a sentence of the Court of Appeal which had already condemned it to pay over three million euros to the Province of Catanzaro. This dispute began way back in 2004, when Catanzaro took Crotone to court to enforce a settlement agreement stipulated between the two provinces, concerning the reimbursement of expenses incurred for mortgages taken out by the provincial administration in order to carry out public works in the Crotone area .
The reimbursement requests concerned financial commitments made when the local authority still had jurisdiction over all three provinces. Despite the tripartition that gave rise to three distinct provinces, Catanzaro continued to support these expenses, bringing the total figure to just over three million euros. The conviction was confirmed at second instance by the Court of Appeal, but Crotone never followed up on the sentence.
In September 2022, as the legal costs continued to increase to over four million euros, the Province of Catanzaro again requested compensation. In 2023, the administrative judges again ordered the Crotone intermediate body to comply with the sentence within 120 days, threatening the appointment of an ad acta commissioner – identified as the prefect of Crotone – to ensure compliance with the judicial decision.
