The mockery of Autonomy: salary cages are being studied for schools, healthcare and transport

The Northern League dream of the old wage cages between North and South could soon come true thanks to the differentiated autonomy approved by the Meloni government and the centre-right. And the reality could be even better than Bossian’s dreams: because the services (and the salaries linked to them) risk being differentiated by law establishing that their costs may be different in the country. We are talking about education, healthcare, transport: that is, the heart of the State which already today does not respect the essential levels of performance (Lep) in the various areas of the country.

The Calderoli law provides that a series of matters can be devolved to the Regions that request them once the Lep have been set: i.e. the minimum services that the State must guarantee equally throughout the territory. The law provides that everything happens at zero cost to the public coffers, and therefore the Regions that have higher expenses should give resources to those that have less to guarantee the Lep. But how do we set the figures for the Essential Performance Levels? To answer this question, a commission led by the constitutionalist was created Sabino Cassesewhich in turn appointed a body of twelve experts and started a regulatory survey on Leps.

Cassese also decided to involve another body, the technical commission on standard requirements led by the Venetian jurist Elena d’Orlando, former consultant to the Venetian governor Luca Zaia in the delegation dealing with the Region for autonomy.

Cassese has called a decisive meeting for tomorrow with the twelve experts together with the technical commission on standard requirements to approve a draft with the criteria necessary to define the Lep for the individual subjects. No one has seen the draft but some well-informed rumors have leaked out on some slides that will be illustrated in the meeting. In the slides there is a passage that connects the definition of the Lep and their costs (including operators’ salaries) to the standard needs, the latter in turn linked «to the characteristics of the different territories, climate, cost of living, and to the aspects sociodemographics of the resident population”. Furthermore, there are passages that link the Leps to demographic dynamics, which see an ongoing emptying of the South which would therefore justify fewer and fewer services in nurseries, schools and health facilities.

Parliament has not been and will not be formally informed on the criteria for defining the Lep, as required by the Calderoli law. The Democratic Party and 5 Star, however, ask Cassese and the ministers Calderoli and Giorgetti to report immediately to the Bicameral Parliament on regional issues: «We find the continued fury towards the South and internal areas on the part of the right incredible and for this reason we will continue to fight in defense of cohesion and national unity”, says the head of the South of the Democratic Party, the deputy Marco Sarracino. «We will not accept that a technical body aseptically defines the criteria for calculating the Lep outside of parliament, the political and social effects of which are there for all to see, and in ways that could penalize the most fragile areas of the country», says the dem Piero De Luca. «The document has not been made public, but it would seem that the criterion adopted is that of territoriality: therefore the right to health, the right to education or the right to transport, to give some examples, would be differentiated based on the place of residence», he says Alfonso ColucciM5s group leader in the Constitutional Affairs commission.