Governance of Metropolitan Regions: Case study Italy

With constitutional reform in 2001 Italy is a de facto federal state with 21 (?) regions.

Metropolitan regions are included in the reform enabling more cooperation between municipalities, provinces, metropolitan cities-regions, autonomous entities.

provinces and municipalities have uniform powers and functions

regions do not have power over local governments but can allocate functions

National level defines the institutional framework

65% of Italians live in cities with 50.000 inhabitants.

Out of 8094 municipalities only 12 have more than 250.000 inhabitants (these will become metropolitan regions)

Milan has 1million inhabitant and produces 10% of national output.

Regional law in 1990 provided top-down process (distributing functions and defining metropolitan regions)

1999 law had a more bottom-up approach.

Since 2001 implementation of law was erratic

In 2009 law delegates fiscal federalism to the government, including provisional scheme metropolitan cities.

Implementation will require either fiscal autonomy to attract more funds or EU incentive.

SOURCE:
Governance of Metropolitan Regions: Case study Italy
Tania Groppi