Asymmetry as its Peak: Italy’s Unfinished But Renewed Path Towards Federalism

Asymmetries, be they of legal or political nature, are affecting Italy since it very inception. Back in 1948, the Italian Constitution provided for the establishment of 15 regions with an ordinary statute and 5 regions with a special statute. The third way between a federal and a unitary State did, however, not properly dismantle Italy’s overall centralist political governance. Ordinary regions were fully developed much later than special regions and regionalism for more than 20 years was implemented in the special regions only. Regionalism developed at a very different pace in each special region with Trentino-South Tyrol being a forerunner regarding the implementation of policy preferences and federal-alike relations to the central authority. With the 2001 Constitutional Reform, Italy vested itself with a quasi-federal constitutional structure by introducing the residual powers’ clause in favor of the regions. However, out of the lack of regional political cultures, several issues linked to the 2001 Constitutional Reform were, if ever, badly implemented. This has, for a long time, also been the case of article 116 para. 3 of the Italian Constitution. It vests ordinary regions with the right to negotiate with the central authority over the transfer for further additional specific forms and conditions of autonomy. Most recently, all ordinary regions either started or initiated the procedure. This is grist to the mills for academia. Opinions as to the question of how this development might affect the overall asymmetric system widely differ. The paper provides a better understanding of the dynamics linked to political and constitutional asymmetries in Italy by examining the variability in regional reactions to the possibility of widening their scope of legislative autonomy. It moves beyond the limitations of procedural aspects and brings in the viewpoint on asymmetry of different regions. The paper is designed as an exploratory research into the existence of regional reactions to asymmetry, their contents and causes.