SPECIAL REPORT OFFICE OF CURRENT INTELLIGENCE THE QUESTION OF REGIONAL ADMINISTRATIONS IN ITALY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00927A004000050004-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: REPORT

19 April 1963
OCI No. 0276/63C
Copy No. 73
SPECIAL REPORT
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OFFICE OF CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
THE QUESTION OF REGIONAL ADMINISTRATIONS IN ITALY
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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19 April 1963
THE QUESTION OF REGIONAL ADMINISTRATIONS IN ITALY
Italy's 1947 constitution provides for the
establishment of regional administrations throughout
the country. The Democratic Socialists and the
Republicans, cabinet partners of Premier Fanfani's
Christian Democratic Party, as well as Pietro Nenni's
Italian Socialist Party (PSI), on which the present
center-left government depends for parliamentary
support, have insisted that the long-delayed regional
administrations be established by the next Parliament.
The enacting legislation has heretofore been blocked
on the ground that such a system would bring the
Communists'to power in their areas of local strength.
However, Nenrd has indicated privately that the
PSI would participate in regional governments with
its present coalition partners rather than with
the Communists, even in those regions where Socialists
and Communists together would have a majority. The
regional administrati.gn questionihas-not been an
important issue in the current election campaign,
but it could emerge as one of the political stumbling
blocks in the formation of a new cabinet.
The constitution drawn up
for the new Italian Republic in
1947 divided the country into 19
regions, possessing a degree of
local autonomy. Although the
Christian Democrats had orginally
been strong proponents of
regional autonomy, a series of
postwar governments led by them
delayed action except with respect
to special autonomy for the
islands of Sicily and Sardinia
and for two border areas largely
populated by`non-Italians. Leg-
islation setting up the third
border region has now been passed
by the Fanfani government.
In 1962, as a quid pro quo
for Socialist parliamentary
support, Fanfani's cabinet pre-
sented Parliament with measures
designed to implement the regional
provisions of the constitution.
Early in 1963, however, the
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Christian Democrats nearly
precipitated a. cabinet crisis
by refusing to push for legis-
lation in the pre-election
Parliament. Party leaders
feared right-wing defections if
they proceeded before the PSI
publicly spells out Nenni's
confidential commitment not to
form regional governments. with
the Communists.
The Christian Democrats'
two cabinet partners announced
at the close of Parliament that
they would withdraw from the
coalition if regional legis-
lation is not carried out after
the April national elections.
Subsequently discussion has
largely died out.
Background
Because of geographic dif-
ferences and long experience
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with foreign administration of
different sections of the penin-
sula, Italians have tended to
develop local rather than national
allegiances. The 19th-century
liberals who brought about
the unification of Italy's
numerous principalities and
states had been afraid of region-
alism, and a Napoleonic system
of centralized government was
instituted by Piedmont, the
mother region. Subsequently,
the 20th-century liberals,
having suffered under the cen-
tralized government of Mussolini,
saw regional powers as a device
by which to thwart future would-
be dictators from Rome.
When the Constituent As-
sembly met in 1946 to draft a
constitution for the new republic,
there was general agreement
in favor of recognizing historic
and distinctive geographic areas
and administrative units to re-
duce the power of the national
government and maintain stability
in the event of its collapse.
Another factor which encouraged
the assembly to create the
regions and to grant them some
autonomy was the fear of
losing territory: to keep the
Aosta Valley in northwest Italy
from going to France, the
province of Bolzano in the
region of the Alto Adige River
from being returned to the
Austrian South Tirol, and to
draw the most favorable frontier
possible at the Yugoslav border.
In addition, by the end of World
War II leaders from the southern
island of Sicily were agitating
vigorously for independence.
Accordingly, special grants
of autonomy were made--first to
Sicily by means of a hastily
conceived charter in 1946, and
two years later to the French-
speaking Aosta Valley, to the
German-speaking Trentino - Alto
Adige area, and to the island
of Sardinia. The present Fanfani
government has recently passed
legislation to set up the Friuli -
Venezia Giulia region in the
partly Slavic area of northeast
Italy, as provided by the con-
stitution.
Regional Powers Envisaged
The Constituent Assembly
had apparently been unwilling
to grant to the main parts of
Italy the degree of autonomy
that its policy of appeasement
made advisable for the periphery
and the constitution denied
special privileges to the four-
teen regions remaining on
the books. In 1953 a measure
setting up the institutions and
general powers of these regions
was enacted but no provision was
made for election of administra-
tive regional councils.
The effective difference
between the autonomy granted
the special regions and that
which would be given the other
14 is not yet clear. However,
one difference is that the special
regions have legislative powers,
whereas the rest would have
power only to concur in national
legislation.
In Sicily, the special
region with the greatest degree
of local autonomy, the Rome
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government retains power to
dissolve the regional assembly,
but the regional government
has control over even the
national police forces in the
area. The ordinary regions
would have control over only
their local police forces, and
the state would have a strong
check on them through the
national supreme court and in
other ways (see inset below).
Like other units of local
government in Italy, the re-
gions would have limited direct
taxing power and percentages
of national taxes would be
turned over to them. The
national government has been
extremely liberal in the case
of the four special regions
already in operation.
The size of the subsidies
to the four operating regions
vary, however,'as do the con-
stitutional formulae for their
As provided in principle by the Constitution of 1947,
and to be clarified by enabling legislation, each of the
14 regions would elect its own regional council. The
council would elect an executive committee, or giunta,
which would in turn choose a-regional president. This
regional government would supervise local economic
and police functions-and urban affairs, and have re-
sponsibility for any changes in city and regional geo-
graphic boundaries.
Rome would retain the following checks on these
administrations: the Italian ConstitutionalCourt would
pass on the constitutionality of regional laws; the President
of the Republic would have power to dissolve the regional
councils; the government's commissioner in each region
would report to Rome on infractions of regional and national
law; the national police would retain authority to supersede
local; police powers.
calculation. An Italian econ-
omist has estimated that if the
Trentino - Alto Adige formula
were applied uniformly on a
country-wide basis the regions
world be receiving 10 to 19
percent of the state's annual
income. If the Sicilian formula
for subsidies should be applied,
however, the regions would be
spending 61 to 62 percent of the
annual Italian national income.
North Italy's Piedmont, on the
other hand, is one of two or
three which give the state
more revenue than they receive
from it.
After some 15 years during
which four regional governments
have been in operation, it is
difficult to discern a definite
pattern in the way these attempts
at decentralization are evolving.
The Val d'Aosta government ap-
pears to have prospered, and to
have evolved into what some
observers allude to as "a sober
government not unlike that of
a Swiss canton." The Sardinian
regional government appears also
to have been run more smoothly
than Sicily, although an eco-
nomic development plan for the
area did not get under way
until it was pushed by the
present national parliament.
Trentino - Alto Adige, set up
as a result of a treaty with
Austria, appears to have been
well administered, but ethnic
animosities have led to a run-
ning dispute with Austria.
The least successful of the
regional governments has been
that of Sicily, where defections
by right-wing Christian Democrats
brought about a situation pro-
viding the Communists with some
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success in blocking efforts to
isolate them politically.
Points of Controversy
Opponents of the
regional system have continued
to declare that it will lead
to consolidation of control
by the Communists in their
areas of strength.. Others
are concerned over the possi-
bility of deadlocks in reg-
ional governments because of
the possible lack of a polit-
ical majority as has been
the case in various local
governments. Others object
to interposition of another
bureaucratic layer in a red-
tape-ridden country, and to
the expense entailed. Pro-
ponents of the regional govern-
ment stress the need for
democratic decentralization
in a tradionally overcentral-
ized state, and for greater
government awareness of
regional problems. They be-
lieve it will be possible to
coordinate the activities of
the regions through the center-
left government's new com-
mission for economic planning,
Proponents of the regional
system point to Nenni's offer
to form regional administra-
tions along the lines of the
present center-left national
government and of those now
obtaining in most key cities--
i.e., alliances including
Christian Democrats and So-
cialists, and excluding the
Socialists' former partners,
the Communists. They urge
that such a situation would
loosen the Communist hold on
areas where Socialist support
has hitherto been an important
factor in Communist strength.
The most important part of
the enabling legislation is
that relating to financing.
This provides that direct revenues
will derive from taxes now
levied by the townships, while
funds provided by the national
government would come from
real estate and certain indirect
taxes and fees, presumably still
to be collected by Rome, with
distribution based generally on
the sums the state now spends
in each region for various ser-
vices. Budget Minister La
Malfa, sponsor of this measure
and one of the strongest sup-
porters of regional administration,
insists that financing the re-
gions would not involve new ex-
pense because the state will give
only what it already spends. He
claims that annual expense for the
regions will amount to about 200
billion lire ($320 million),
rather than 800 billion as oppo-
nents charge.
With regard to a new bureauc-
racy, La Malfa figures "maximum
personnel" at some eight thousand.
He believes the task of the gov-
ernment's new commission for co-
ordinated economic planning, which
he heads ex officio, would be
facilitated by a regional system
which will point up area problems
needing government action.
Prospects
The areas where special
autonomy is already in effect
are too specialized in character
to offer a clue as to the success
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or failure of applying some-
what less autonomist regional
administration'to the rest of
the country.
If, as now seems likely,
another center-left government
is formed again after the
election, pressures on the
Christian Democrats by their
parliamentary partners may re-
sult in the creation of re-
gional administrations through-
out Italy,, although in view of
the general lull of public in-
terest in the matter, the coali-
tion parties may work out some
kind of watered-down compromise
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