From 19 June 2024, Italy will change and approve a gamble for its future, Differentiated Autonomy.
No longer a single and indivisible Republic as stated in the now ancient Art. 5 of the Italian Constitution, but with the approval of the law on regional autonomies, it probably comes closer to a federation of Regions that will go on their own, and linked between of them from foreign policy and from these unknown and incomprehensible LEPs (essential performance levels), which according to some should rebalance the socio-economic levels of the various regions for a balanced growth of the entire nation and leave no one behind.
Differentiated autonomy is a concept that will give the Italian regions the possibility of obtaining greater autonomy compared to what is provided for by the national constitutional framework in a significant number of subjects, and which will put the idea of subsidiarity that should distinguish our nation in the attic .
In this new condition as SINALP we ask ourselves the fateful question, how will the South, but Sicily, find themselves with this new rule?
Sicily, as already a region with a special statute, possesses with the RDL of 15 May 1946, n. 455 its autonomy, among other things with the Constitutional Charter, known as the Sicilian Statute.
The Sicilian Statute, approved in 1946, is a document that gives the Sicilian Region legislative, administrative and fiscal powers in various sectors, such as agriculture, fishing, tourism, cultural heritage and natural resources.
This Statute was designed to recognize the historical, cultural and geographical specificity of the island, ensuring more local management of regional resources and policies.
Unfortunately, beyond what is written in the Sicilian Statute, our Region has never managed to enforce this Constitution in full.
In fact, Italy has never allowed the full implementation of our Statute.
Therefore the Hamlet-like doubt is whether the now chronic economic crisis that grips our Region is caused by the failure to fully implement the Statute, or by an inability of our political class to know how to administer the regional socio-economic structure.
This constitutional reform, which has always been strongly desired by the League, even if in the past the center-left has also waved the flag of differentiated autonomy, leaves us at least greatly perplexed.
The invention of LEPs (essential performance levels) in itself is not a guarantee of equity between the various regions that make up Italy.
Indeed, if managed selfishly by the economically richer regions, they will crystallize the socio-economic conditions of the poorer regions, and prevent their development in the future, given that they will receive the funding necessary to maintain those levels crystallized over time.
To better understand these LEPs, let’s take the example of full-time management in schools; according to ministerial data collected by Tuttoscuola in 2022, the latest data available, 48.7% of the total classes in the regions of the Center and North use full time, while in the regions of the South it is just 20.6%, and this for lack of adequate funding and not due to organizational inability.
This aspect alone, in many ways secondary to the major problems that beset this nation, makes us understand how many job opportunities are lacking in the South and in Sicily, just think of the lack of employment management of school canteens
If we used the LEP to crystallize this condition, the Southern Regions, in the school sector, will no longer have the possibility of reaching the Northern Regions given that the Central State will finance full-time only for that “crystallized” 20.6% of schools .
As SINALP we believe the approval of this constitutional reform is the opportunity to finally ask for the full application of our Statute and the return of all the funds that to date the Central State has arbitrarily withheld and not recognized to Sicily.
The full application of the Sicilian Statute can finally be the main path to strengthening regional autonomy, improving local governance and better responding to the needs of Sicilian citizens.
If we fail to obtain full application of the Statute then we believe that this reform will undermine the economic development and social growth of Sicily and the Sicilians.
The Regional Management
