A-Infos (en) Italy, FAS Sicilia Libertaria: Differentiated autonomy and the Sicilian question (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

To deal with the consequences that the introduction of differentiated 
autonomy will bring to Sicily (D.D.L. Calderoli approved on 23 February 
2023 by the national government and a month later by the Conference of 
the Regions, with the favorable vote also of the Sicilian governor 
Schifani) it is mandatory to refer to special autonomy granted on 15 May 
1946, with which the Island assumed exclusive competence in matters of 
cultural heritage, agriculture and forests, civic uses, industry and 
commerce, urban planning, local public works, mines and salt pans, 
public waters, fishing and hunting, local authorities, charities and 
charitable works (art. 14 of the Statute). Differentiated autonomy would 
add many others, among which education, work, mobility and health are of 
primary importance.

To financially support regional spending in the subjects already 
assigned, the articles. 36-38 of the Statute established that Sicily 
would be responsible for all fiscal taxes, including those relating to 
companies operating but not resident on the island, plus a share that 
the State would have to pay as national solidarity (equalization fund). 
The former would amount to around 10 billion per year, never paid, the 
latter, which has not been paid for sixty years, has created an 
incalculable credit in favor of the Region (it is still several 
billion). Since 2019, excise duties on energy have been added, not yet 
paid (around 9 billion per year) and, from 2022, an annual allowance for 
mobility difficulties caused by insularity amounting to around 6 billion 
(amendment of art. 119 of the Constitution).

Such a non-compliant State, which has been able to count for decades on 
the ineptitude and complicity of Sicilian politicians of all sides, 
contributing heavily to widening the gap between the North and the 
extreme South of the country, what guarantee could it provide by 
introducing further sectors that would finance the Sicilians presumably 
on their own, or through a further national equalization fund, to be set 
up "on the basis of available resources" (art. 9 of the Calderoli DDL)?

Wouldn't a further expanded special autonomy constitute a further insult 
to the Sicilians? Wouldn't it lead to a new increase in taxes, tickets, 
fees and poverty? And what political autonomy would be achieved in 
practice if, instead of abolishing the figure of the State Commissioner 
who already intervenes today to invalidate the inconvenient acts of the 
Sicilian Parliament, the government itself in office (art. 10 of the 
Calderoli DDL) is given the power to activate the "substitute power" 
provided for by the art. 120, paragraph 2, of the Constitution?

Rather than talking about fleshing out that Sicilian autonomy which, 
born in 1946 to counter the then independence threat, led the island to 
its current political-social failure, it would not be appropriate to 
resurrect a Sicilianist demand from below, which imposes a different 
social organization based on economic equality among all Sicilians and 
on the free federation between the municipalities of the island and with 
the rest of Italy? that includes among its fighting objectives the 
recovery of the billions stolen from Sicily not only after the Second 
World War but also in the previous decades, when the unitary State used 
the resources then available to primarily finance the development of the 
regions of the industrialized North?

Other than the LEP, the essential (read "minimum") levels of 
performance, which the Northern League minister would like to maintain 
in the poorest autonomous regions, allowing the currently richest ones, 
and their richest citizens, to reach levels ever higher, fomenting 
inequalities, disparities in rights and treatment, sinking in the 
southern regions - but also in those of the north, as demonstrated by 
the propensity for private investments - public schools, public health, 
transport and public services in general.

All that remains is to mobilize transversally, as soon as possible, the 
oppressed of Sicily and the oppressed of the continent, to prevent the 
project of differentiated autonomy, which is so tempting for the new 
masters/plunderers of Italy, from actually coming to fruition.

Sicilian Anarchist Federation

(from the document presented at the Congress of the International of 
Anarchist Federations in April last year)

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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