Commentary
To affirm ‘regional peoples’ is to deny the existence of the Italian people
Attributing to regions notions that properly apply to individuals – as Minister Calderoli and the presidents of the northern regions are doing – is an argumentative fallacy and a clamorous failure of logic.
“The North is tired of supporting the South.” “The South can’t keep living off the back of the North.” How many times in recent years have we heard such sentiments in Italy?
“Those in the South who fight against autonomy are selfish compared to the North, because right now, in Italy, there are 12 regions in the Center-North that give out more money than they take, and eight other regions that take more than they give out,” according to none other than the Minister of Regional Affairs, Roberto Calderoli. It has come to this point: openly saying that those who are not doing well and asking for solidarity are selfish people who have no qualms about hurting those who are well off.
Beyond being morally appalling, the fact is that applying such reasoning to the regions is utterly meaningless. It is a clumsy attempt at manipulation. The argument that virtuous regions “prop up” unvirtuous ones with their own money rests on the assessment of tax revenues paid and public spending received by region. From the fact that there are regions that pay more taxes than the value of the public services they receive and other regions that receive public services in an amount greater than the tax revenue they produce, they draw the inference that some regions enjoy services that are paid for by others.
In this vein, they argue that the former have a “tax surplus” and the latter a “tax liability.” The implication is that, if each region paid taxes amounting only to the exact amount of government spending it received, the result would be that the richer regions could reduce their tax burden while maintaining the same level of services, while the poorer ones would see that level decrease. The president of Lombardy calculated that his region pays €54 billion “too much”; his colleagues from Veneto and Emilia-Romagna measure the excess at €18 and €17 billion, respectively; the president of Piedmont says the figure for his region is €11 billion. Hence the accusation of selfishness against those who work to prevent cuts in the funds going for the benefit of others.
But it’s enough to take a closer look to realize how insubstantial such claims are. Do regions actually pay taxes and receive public services? Do they really have “tax surpluses” or “liabilities”? The answer to all these questions is no. Regions don’t have tax surpluses, since, in reality, they neither pay taxes nor receive public services. It is individual people who do that, and in either case, it makes no difference whatsoever whether they happen to be residents of this or that regional territory. How much each person pays in taxes and receives in services depends on their income, assets, age, health, personal and family conditions, and so on: elements which, as a rule, have nothing to do with the region they reside in. I pay taxes on my income as a university professor at the same average rate as a colleague of mine who, with the same qualification and seniority, teaches at the University of Macerata. And if we both have the same family situation, we receive an identical monthly subsidy from the INPS for our dependent children.
Attributing to regions notions that properly apply to individuals – as Minister Calderoli and the presidents of the northern regions are doing – is an argumentative fallacy and a clamorous failure of logic. And it is also a legally untenable claim. As recognized by the Constitutional Court in its ruling No. 83 of 2016, the Constitution, in Article 2, imposes mutual duties of economic, political and social solidarity on Italian citizens as such, and not on Venetians towards other Venetians or on Piedmontese towards other Piedmontese. Again, the territory of residence has no relevance whatsoever; otherwise, national unity would lie in tatters, starting with the Italian people that forms its basis.
To affirm the existence of “regional peoples” is to deny the existence of the Italian people. This is why the constitutional principle of fiscal progressivity (Art. 53) implies the redistribution of wealth among fellow citizens of the state, not the region, as a means through which to develop social bonds among people. (...) Shrinking redistributive solidarity to the level of one’s fellow region dwellers, to the detriment of one’s compatriots, means (...) sanctioning the prevalence of regional belonging over national belonging, a claim that comes from an openly secessionist background, which puts those who are pushing it on a collision course with the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, proclaimed as an inviolable fundamental principle by Article 5 of the Constitution.
* From the book Loro dicono, noi diciamo. Su premierato, giustizia e regioni (“What They Say, What We Say. On Premierate, Justice and Regions”) by Gustavo Zagrebelsky, Armando Spataro and Francesco Pallante, ed. Laterza
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/cosi-il-popolo-regionale-cancella-la-costituzione on 2024-10-22