Bulletin n. 2-3/2013
February 2014
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Mangiameli Stelio
    Overning from the Centre: The Influence of the Federal/Central Government on Subnational Governments. The Italian Case
    in Italian Papers on Federalism , n. 2/2013 ,  2013
    The essay illustrates the problems regarding the distribution of powers between the central and regional governments following the amendments made to Title V of the Italian Constitution. The study emphasizes that the powers that had been vested exclusively in the central government were considered extremely limited in scope, also considering the concrete substance of the subject matters. At the start, the Constitutional Court took seriously the reversal of the enumeration technique. But, immediately, the Court justified a derogation from the distribution of powers, under certain circumstances: through a reserved interpretation of the principle of legality, appeared a completely uncertain division of powers, because of the «appeal to subsidiarity», similarly to what happened in the initial period of Italian regionalisation about the «national interests». The Court, however, establishes a procedural and consensual interpretation of the principles of subsidiarity and appropriateness, joined to the principles of proportionality, reasonableness, and loyal cooperation (especially through the standing Conference of the State and Regions, judgment n. 303/2003). In addition to infrastructure of national importance, and the production, transport, and national distribution of energy, the Court, immediately after the amendments made to Title V of the Italian Constitution, intervened on the ?protection of competition» (judgment n. 14/2004). In this judgment the Court allowed the State to become the role of guarantor of the unitary national market, in spite of the literal meaning of the Constitution. The last part of the essay examines the crosscutting competences, identified as exclusives competences, sui generis. So, in case of overlapping of subject matters, the principle that should be applied would have been the prevalence principle, and not, as the Constitutional Court affirmed, the loyal cooperation. Finally, the essay examines the need to supersede problems deriving from loyal cooperation. The possible solutions can be the Federal Senate, and fiscal federalism.
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