End of an era? The Monti government approach to central/local relationships

In the fall of 2012 the Italian Government, chaired by Mario Monti, has taken a series of decisions going in the direction of a strong re-centralisation of Italian public administration. In particular it has proposed a constitutional reform transferring back to the State several competencies devolved to the Regions in 2001, and has also proposed to reestablish external ex ante controls on the local and regional expenditure (entrusted to the Court of Accounts, the financial police and the Ministry for the Economy), as well as a strong limitation to the statutory freedom of the Regions. This is in reality only the last episode of a policy orientation that can be only described as centralistic, and that encompasses the reduction of the financial transfers to the territorial government, the proposed abolishment of the Provincia (the county level administration) as a directly elected body, the imposition of a string of stringent rules on the administrations. Actually it has re-established the municipal tax on the real estate thatwas abolished by the Berlusconi government in 2008, but it has also decided that half of the revenue has to be transferred from the Communes to the State: for the first time in Italian history are the local governments that finance the central administration and not viceversa