Abstract

Some relevant innovations are affecting Italian constitutional and economic system in these last years: they concern the fiscal rules ordered by the Constitution, and in particular the budgetary policy. Such rules are object of specific procedures, monitoring and surveillance which involve also the European legal order. The essay focuses on the 'reinforced law' introduced by the new art. 81 Cost., which was object of constitutional reform in 2012: this law is going to play a very important role in order to reach the result of keeping the public finance in balance. The essay also aims at evaluating how the Italian system of public accounts is going to change and which priorities will characterize the public expenditures. The analysis must first be directed to the procedural mechanisms and to the restrictions which have been approved by the European institutions; and then it moves to consider the effects of these innovations on the inner order, which has been conformed to them. The decisions regarding the public revenues and expenditures will be affected at any level, national and local: this circumstance is going to play a powerful role in a double perspective. The first aspect to study will be the quality of the welfare system which the Italian public policies are going to afford in the future; the second aspect deals with the real size of the autonomy which will be still exercised by Regions and municipalities, as the restrictions connected with the purpose of the budgetary balance are likely to limit a great amount of their decisions.