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Abolish the provinces is not enough
Abolishing the provinces is "well and good" but not enough! We should be given a new administrative structure for the country, not only to a need for reduction of current expenditure, but rather to make it more efficient and more equal.
But also on the organization of the state we discount, as in other areas, the weight of our history, which is sometimes so heavy that almost overwhelms us and paralyzes until pietrificarci in an unchanging vision of things, so every discussion and it is the case of the abolition of the provinces, became a clash between factions, losing sight of the core of the issue, which in this case is the efficiency of the organizational model of the state and therefore the effectiveness of resource allocation. Instead the story should take cultural elements by which process the changes necessary for a useful evolution.
Today our administrative system has 20 regions, 110 provinces, municipalities and well 8092 (ISTAT data mark. March 2013), ignoring the myriad of intermediate bodies of the mountain communities and island, the basin authorities, consortia of industrial development, unions of municipalities. This universe of entities and institutions already resulted in gradually over the years a loss of efficiency and effectiveness that weighs well beyond mere financial costs recorded in the accounts of the state, regions and gradually each institution.
This model is derived directly from the organization called for the creation of a unitary state in the second half of the nineteenth century, but its roots in the history of our country since the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and then with the age of the lords and then of Commons , who made our country the cultural vanguard of the world but that in his vision crystallized risks becoming a factor of backwardness that can separate us from Europe and ranks developed countries.
L '"of Italy Steeples" can not continue to be the cultural reference of the organization of a modern state inserted fully into the European context. The more than eight thousand Italian municipalities apparently no longer able to provide an adequate framework of the state with the powers drawn from the constitution, especially if you imagine a further acceleration on the path of reform in a federalist state. Municipalities, as the figures provided by ISTAT, are not a homogenous group, it is, on the contrary, a composite and variegated universe. In fact, if we consider the main characterized by a classification of communities, ie the size of its population, we find that the smallest municipality is Monterone in the province of Lecco and has only 33 inhabitants, while the largest municipality is in Rome and has 2,546,804 inhabitants. Each of them, at least on paper, should provide the same services to the citizens and provide the same conditions of access to public goods and ensure equal opportunities and living conditions. It 'clear that this does not happen by determining conditions of inequality and inequality between citizens of different common even within the same geographic area with serious consequences on the balance of social and territorial.
Each municipality, then to fulfill its institutional role, function and organization has its own mayor, a city council, a council, staff to run the business and public services. Each municipality has its own financial management, and tax revenue is subject to, and must guarantee public services and ensure the management of the township and the municipal infrastructure and public facilities.
A few weeks ago the Minister Delrio said "I am confident that we can quickly get to a new organization of the provincial level and for making the center the municipalities and regions and to allow a significant cost savings, not only for the abolition itself but for synergies between different levels of government and in a timely manner if they define the skills. "
I believe that this statement should be clarified, for the implications it contains. In particular, I note an element of potential contradiction that must be the subject of a preliminary clarification. It should be specified, in my opinion, that "the common place at the center", must mean to focus the organizational structure of our country the level of local government, however, can not and must correspond with the current universe of common, but it must be based precisely on a new articulation of the basic administrative districts.
Use this phrase just to clear up the misunderstandings that the term joint can determine. The "basic administrative unit", or the '' local authority 'must necessarily have a demographic dimension and territorial able to ensure the necessary proximity to citizens, but must, also, be able to perform properly the administrative functions now undertaken head to the municipalities. To be more clear I will use an example that comes from the experience developed in Campania in the formation of the Regional Development Plan. Here the description of the Plan, to place in the territory of developing coherent policies, identifies regional systems development. They are no more than aggregations of common structured by virtue of factors of homogeneity defined dominant. These collections also often represent also the transfiguration of other experiences of collaboration and partnership of the common objective of developing (Territorial Pacts, Patti eg employment etc.) That have requested preliminary act which set up a spontaneous aggregation of municipalities, and that they conversely generated other relay persons "purpose", agents of local development, which generally has been entrusted with the formation and implementation of development programs. So the STS, defining a new model of territorial units, have taken on a role and essential function in the identification and implementation of development policies in Campania. This experience is not peculiar to the region of Campania, on the contrary it is widespread in the world of Italian regions but with different variations, which according to the specific needs and opportunities has produced new models and territorial structures. To these must be talkin to overcome the current fragmentation administrative increasingly distant from required levels of efficiency and effectiveness. If we pursued such a reform in Campania will pass from the current 551 municipalities in 45 local authorities, of these 5 are the urban aggregations of Naples, Salerno, Caserta, Avellino and Benevento.
Today, after the consultation as it was easily predictable criticized the suppression by decree of the provinces, the government has prepared a draft constitutional law abolishing the institution of the province by the Constitution by giving the ordinary law the territorial reorganization indicating that any intermediary entities They will be at no cost and will be defined by the regions within the limits of the general criteria defined by state law as required under specific organizational power to them recognized by Title V of the Constitution and specified by Legislative Decree 267/2000, after consultation with the regional population. These institutions are defined in the proposal "Local Authorities for the exercise of government functions of the vast and coordination of the municipalities."
This proposal, while showing greater sensitivity to the current situation, highlights many limitations and inconsistencies and does not solve the crux of the reorganization of administrative functions related to the termination of the provinces. In particular, it appears to postulate the need to identify forms of government regarding the issues defined large area and the need for coordination of the municipalities, but then entrusted the solution to a voluntary activity of municipal bodies, which in the context of Italian in the light of experience appears totally inadequate. As it appears inadequate the absence of a detailed analysis of the administrative functions. In contrast to place the discussion on more solid foundations we should start from a careful rewriting of Presidential Decree 616/77, since it showed with absolute crystallinity the inadequacy of the organizational model centered on the 8000 municipalities in Italy. It therefore seems inevitable to more than 23 years after the law 142/90 carry out a structural reform of the state organization, debate and experience, technological progress and changes in the international scenario, developed in over 20 years require us to face this challenge with a higher profile of the current discussion, which seems absolutely flattened on one need cash.
The current requirement of cash as opposed to be transfigured in the need of a more general improvement in the quality and efficiency of public spending. In this perspective the overcoming of the current common is not postponed. And 'this is the theme that should be on the political agenda of the National and Regional Institutions; It can not escape from the significance and implications of the redesign of the basic units of local government levels and the percentage of higher-level regions, national state, and we hope soon European federal state.
Francesco Crispino