THE IMPACT OF THE BALANCED BUDGET PRINCIPLE ON REGIONAL FINANCIAL AUTONOMY IN ITALY

The severe economic and financial crisis, exploded in the United States since 2007 as crisis of private debt, has gradually expanded, into the States of Europe, especially in the Euro-Mediterranean area, in the form of sovereign debt crisis. The Member States, as well as the European Union, found themselves practically unfit to manage this crisis. Conditioning measures on national economic policies decided by EU institutions, were more and more implemented by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the adoption, in 1997, of the Stability and Growth Pact, and even intensified through the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, in 2009. The Member States, facing rules and obligations at European level, have the specific task of ensuring the correct application and respect of supranational regulation in their legal systems, carrying out the function of "supervisors" towards intermediate levels in which the national legal organization is organized. The Italian Constitutional Law 1/2012, introducing the balanced budget rule, binds all public authorities and regional governments to a strict observance of the obligations arising from the European Union in the field of fiscal policy and public finance. Moreover, this constitutional reform has transferred the competence called "harmonization of public accounts" from the concurrent competence (better said, divided) between Central State and Regions to the exclusive competence of the State. The Regions and other local authorities are, insofar, now called to play an important role in implementing these obligations set by the European Union. Their budgets have indeed to respect the balances imposed on each Country by supranational institutions as well as those designed by the State on account of the 2012 constitutional reform.