The competitiveness of welfare systems analyzed through equity: a comparison between Italy and France

The following reflections start off from a comparative research on the implementation in different European countries of the regional european policies. Leaving a sector conception of community policies apart and, on the contrary, defending their interdependence with national policies, the author suggests that the execution processes of European structural funds may be affected by welfare systems spread nationwide. In particular, we think that social equity meant in a procedural significance as a political and economic arrangement of the different welfares and as an indicator of their collective legitimacy, represents the condition that, still distinguishing French and Italian welfares, slackens - both in France and in Italy - the implementation of community regional policies. Particularly, it seems that the aptitude of public actions to represent plural interests, to arrange public and private interests, to promote the emergency and organisation of private enterprise, to defend the pursuit of collective interests, constitutes a certain political mechanism that impede - in both countries - both the coordination between national public policies and european policies and the political and collective perception of economic urge that the latter can offer to competitiveness and innovation of the different welfares