JUDGMENT NO. 152

YEAR 2025

ITALIAN REPUBLIC

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

composed of:

President: Giovanni AMOROSO;

Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Massimo LUCIANI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,

has pronounced the following

JUDGMENT

in the constitutional legitimacy review of art. 1, paragraphs 784, 786, 789, 790, 792, 793, 796 and 797, letters a) and d), of Law of 30 December 2024, no. 207 (State Budget Law for the fiscal year 2025 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2025-2027), initiated by the Campania Region with a claim served on March 1, 2025, filed with the Registry on the following March 5, registered under no. 13 of the claims for 2025 and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic no. 13, first special series, of the year 2025.

Having noted the statement of constitution by the President of the Council of Ministers;

having heard in the public hearing of September 23, 2025, the Reporting Judge Luca Antonini;

having heard counsel Almerina Bove for the Campania Region, as well as State Attorneys Enrico De Giovanni and Marina Russo for the President of the Council of Ministers;

deliberated in the council chamber on September 24, 2025.

Facts Considered

1.– With a claim served on March 1, 2025, and filed on the following March 5 (Reg. Claims no. 13 of 2025), the Campania Region, in the person of its President pro tempore, challenged art. 1, paragraphs 784, 786, 789, 790, 792, 793, 796 and 797, letters a) and d), of Law of December 30, 2024, no. 207 (State Budget Law for the fiscal year 2025 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2025-2027), with reference, in general, to articles 3, 53, 81, 97, 117, 119 and 120 of the Constitution.

1.1.– The first six of the aforementioned provisions establish and regulate a measure for the contribution of local authorities to public finance, structured as follows:

«784. For the purpose of safeguarding the economic unity of the Republic, Regions, the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano, Metropolitan Cities, Provinces, and Municipalities participate in achieving public finance objectives and complying with economic and financial constraints arising from the new rules of European economic governance in the manner provided for by paragraphs 785 to 794, which constitute fundamental principles for the coordination of public finance, pursuant to the third paragraph of Article 117 and the second paragraph of Article 119 of the Constitution. Entities in financial distress, pursuant to Article 244 of the consolidated text of laws on the organisation of local authorities, enacted by Legislative Decree of August 18, 2000, no. 267, or subject to financial readjustment procedures, pursuant to Article 243-bis of the same consolidated text enacted by Legislative Decree of August 18, 2000, no. 267, as of January 1, 2025, or which have signed the agreements referred to in Article 1, paragraph 572, of Law of December 30, 2021, no. 234, and in Article 43, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law of May 17, 2022, no. 50, converted, with amendments, by Law of July 15, 2022, no. 91, are excluded from the payment of the contribution referred to in paragraph 788. Regions with special statutes and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano participate in achieving public finance objectives and complying with economic and financial constraints arising from the new rules of European economic governance as provided for by paragraphs 710 to 724. […]

786. Ordinary statute Regions shall ensure a contribution to public finance, additional to that provided for by existing legislation, amounting to 280 million euros for the year 2025, 840 million euros for each of the years from 2026 to 2028, and 1,310 million euros for the year 2029. The allocation of the contribution to public finance referred to in the first period shall be determined, by February 28, 2025, through self-coordination among the Regions, formalised by decree of the Minister of Economy and Finance, in agreement with the Minister for Regional Affairs and Autonomies, after hearing the Permanent Conference for Relations between the State, the Regions, and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano. In the absence of an agreement through self-coordination, the allocation shall be determined, by March 20, 2025, by decree of the Minister of Economy and Finance, in agreement with the Minister for Regional Affairs and Autonomies, after hearing the Permanent Conference for Relations between the State, the Regions, and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano, in proportion, with reference to the non-healthcare perimeter, to current expenditure commitments, net of commitments for interest payments, for transfers to the State budget as a contribution to public finance, and for expenditures of Mission 12, Social Rights, Social Policies, and Family, as resulting from the last approved statement of accounts, including that of the Board of Directors of each Region only. […]

789. For each of the years from 2025 to 2029, Regions and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano, Metropolitan Cities, Provinces, and Municipalities shall enter in Mission 20, Funds and Allocations, of the current part of each budget forecast a fund, with an endowment equal to the annual contribution to public finance referred to in paragraphs 786 to 788, without prejudice to compliance with the current budget balance referred to in Article 40 of Legislative Decree of June 23, 2011, no. 118 […]. With reference to the 2025-2027 budget forecast, the fund referred to in the first period of this paragraph shall be entered within thirty days of the allocation of the contributions to public finance by budget variation approved by the act of the council, for local authorities, and by regional law, for ordinary statute Regions. […] The establishment of the fund, against which commitments cannot be made, shall be financed through current resources.

790. At the end of each financial year, the fund referred to in paragraph 789, for entities in a situation of administrative deficit at the end of the previous financial year, shall constitute a saving that contributes to the early settlement of the administrative deficit, in addition to what is provided for in the budget forecast. For entities with an administration result equal to zero or positive at the end of the previous financial year, the fund shall flow into the allocated part of the administration result designated for financing investments, including indirect ones, in the following financial year, with priority over the formation of new debt. For the purposes of this paragraph, Regions and Autonomous Provinces shall consider the administrative deficit net of the portion resulting from authorized and uncontracted debt. […]

792. By June 30 of each financial year from 2026 to 2030, by decree of the Minister of Economy and Finance, based on the statements transmitted to the public administrations database, pursuant to Article 18, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree of June 23, 2011, no. 118, compliance at the level of the local authority sector with the balance referred to in paragraph 785 of this Article and the allocation referred to in paragraph 789 of this Article shall be verified. In the event of non-compliance with the objectives referred to in the first period, determined as the algebraic sum of the balance referred to in paragraph 785 and the non-allocations referred to in paragraph 789, the entities that did not comply with the budget balance referred to in paragraph 785 or did not allocate the fund referred to in paragraph 789 in the previous financial year shall be identified. For the entities referred to in the second period, the increase in the fund referred to in paragraph 789 shall be determined, which, within the following thirty days, such entities shall be required to enter into the budget forecast with reference to the financial year in progress, equal to the sum in absolute value:

a) of the balance referred to in paragraph 785 recorded in the previous financial year if negative;

b) of the smaller allocation of the fund referred to in paragraph 789 compared to the annual contribution to public finance referred to in paragraphs 785 to 788.

793. For entities that do not transmit the final or pre-final data relating to the previous financial year to the public administrations database by May 31, the contribution to public finance shall be increased by 10 percent in the manner provided for by paragraph 792. In the case of entities for which the deadlines for approving the management statement are suspended by law as of January 2, 2025, the penalties referred to in the first period shall not apply.»

1.2.– The other challenged provisions, paragraphs 796 and 797, letters a) and d), affect, respectively, paragraphs 139 and 134 of art. 1 of Law of December 30, 2018, no. 145 (State Budget Law for the fiscal year 2019 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2019-2021), providing, the first, for a reduction of contributions for municipal investments and, the second, for the zeroing of those allocated to Regions.

In particular, the aforementioned paragraph 796 reduces "by 200 million euros for each of the years from 2028 to 2030" the expenditure authorization for the allocation to Municipalities of contributions for investments relating to public works for the safety upgrading of buildings and territory, while the following paragraph 797 provides for the abolition, starting from the year 2027, of the allocations to ordinary statute Regions for investments, previously provided until the year 2034 for a total of 2,376.5 million euros, and the replacement of Table 1, which determines the amounts due to each Region from these contributions, with a new Table, contained in Annex II of the same Law no. 207 of 2024.

1.3.– The claim firstly indicates that the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, in the opinion issued on the text of the budget bill 2025, highlighted critical aspects of the contribution to public finance, as it is additional to those already established by previous budget measures and therefore difficult to sustain for the majority of Regions, for which, moreover, the provision allowing the use of budget allocations to finance investments would have been unfeasible.

It adds that these observations were reiterated in the note of January 30, 2025, with which the aforementioned Conference, in communicating the agreement reached through self-coordination among the Regions on the allocation of the contribution exclusively for the year 2025, requested the initiation of a dialogue with the State for the years 2026 and beyond, as well as the rapid convening of the Permanent Conference for the Coordination of Public Finance, as the venue for the involvement of local authorities recalled by Judgment no. 195 of 2024 of this Court.

Having stated this, the applicant Region recalls its commitment to recover a significant administrative deficit, dating back to the fiscal year 2015, through a recovery plan that affects budget forecasts with an annual share of more than one hundred and twenty-eight million euros, and emphasizes that, as of December 31, 2023, the reduction achieved is greater than the objective resulting from the plan.

2.– Introducing the grounds for challenge, the claim notes that although art. 1, paragraph 784, of Law no. 207 of 2024 expressly qualifies the provisions of the following paragraphs 785 to 794 as "fundamental principles for the coordination of public finance," the amount, modalities, and deadlines for the Regions' contribution to public finance provided for by the challenged provisions would not be classifiable as such in light of the findings, even recent ones, of constitutional jurisprudence.

In general, the State provisions: a) impose "a specific mode of contribution to public finance" – through the allocation of substantial resources with consequent "restricted use thereof" – which is added to other existing measures "without providing for any fact-finding verification on the appropriateness with respect to the objectives and the sustainability of the imposed measure"; b) deprive "Regions in deficit of the option to use" the aforesaid financial resources; c) unreasonably and contrary to the principles of substantive equality and contribution capacity, fail to distinguish the position of Regions already committed to recovering from deficit from that of Regions not in deficit, imposing only on the former an additional subtraction of resources, to the detriment of the administered communities; d) provide for "heavy sanctions" for non-implementation of the measure, without respecting the principle of loyal collaboration; e) suppress resources intended for investments, in contradiction with the constraint to achieve a determined level of expenditure of this nature, for Regions engaged in deficit recovery.

2.1.– With a first set of issues, regarding paragraphs 784, 786, and 789 of art. 1 of Law no. 207 of 2024, the claim complains that the legislator has "completely omitted to impose the mandatory fact-finding investigation" on the sustainability of the contribution amount by the entities to whom it was requested, despite the prompt from this Court in Judgment no. 195 of 2024 to involve the Permanent Conference for the Coordination of Public Finance, in order to respect the principle of loyal collaboration.

The introduced contribution measure would therefore be "completely arbitrary, unreasonable, and illegitimate" under Articles 3, 53, 81, 97, 117, 119, and 120 of the Constitution.

Furthermore, paragraph 786, by providing for an agreement among the Regions through self-coordination regarding the allocation of the contribution, would not ensure substantial compliance with the principle of loyal collaboration under art. 120 of the Constitution, since the "precise identification of the amounts of the contribution to public finance" that the Regions must ensure for each year leaves the Regions themselves "only a formal margin of discretion," binding them to adhere to allocation criteria derived "from mere factual conditions."

The same provision, in the part that governs the allocation mechanism in the absence of an agreement among the Regions, would violate the invoked constitutional parameters by "aseptically commensurating" the amount of the contribution to the financial magnitude of current expenditure, without considering the actual public finance contribution capacity of each Region, as there is no direct link between the latter and the amount of current expenditure, taken as a reference by the norm.

In this regard, citing data from a report by the Directorate-General for Financial Resources of the Campania Region, the claim highlights that the mechanism of contributions to public finance would have affected the Region's ability "to carry out its institutional purposes," forcing it, in order to settle deficits, to activate the tax lever. With the result that in the period from 2015 to 2023, the additional resources obtained from increases in surcharges on personal income tax (IRPEF) and regional tax on productive activities (IRAP) would not have been used "to provide greater services to citizens, but to finance Campania's contribution to public finance objectives."

2.2.– With a second ground for the claim, art. 1, paragraph 790, of Law no. 207 of 2024 is challenged in the part where, by significantly differentiating the use of the fund referred to in paragraph 789, into which the amount of the contribution to public finance must be allocated, depending on whether the Region is "in a situation of administrative deficit," it creates an "illogical and evident disparity of treatment among Regions," in contrast with the principle of equality, and produces effects on the administered communities, leading to a further widening of inequalities among citizens, following the increase in infrastructural disparities and the consequent effects on regional gross domestic product (GDP), disadvantaging, in contrast with constitutional principles, territories with lower contribution capacity.

In a doubly paradoxical manner, the Regions that contribute most to the improvement of public finance balances, by more strictly reducing current expenditure, would be penalized by the prohibition of using the resulting savings to finance capital expenditure; moreover, Regions "already in deficit" would have fewer resources "to relaunch regional GDP" and, with it, the entity's budget revenues.

Therefore, in violation of the principle of substantive equality under art. 3 of the Constitution, which requires the provision of legislative measures compensatory or corrective of the different initial positions, the provision in question would rather contribute "to aggravate existing inequalities (stemming from age-old conditions)."

The principle of good administration of the public administration under art. 97 of the Constitution would also be violated, precluding the use of the allocation to finance investments even for Regions, such as Campania, which are already obliged to increase annual investment payments by virtue of the deficit settlement discipline under art. 1, paragraphs 779 and 780, of Law of December 27, 2017, no. 205 (State Budget Law for the fiscal year 2018 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2018-2020).

All the aforementioned complaints would have "clear repercussions in the sphere of constitutionally guaranteed regional competencies," given that the alleged violation of constitutional parameters would impair the regional autonomies and prerogatives recognized by art. 117, third paragraph, and art. 119 of the Constitution, preventing the exercise of regional programming and spending autonomy and, even, the fulfillment of investment obligations connected to the deficit recovery regime.

2.2.1.– The claim argues "a further aspect of disparity of treatment" in the provision of the aforementioned paragraph 790, observing that the possibility granted to entities not in deficit to use the contribution amount to finance investments would entail "a cost to the treasury," specified by the technical report on the government bill for the years 2026 to 2035. However, deficit Regions could not "access the allocation of resources designated for investments," within the limits of the State budget's capacity, pursuant to art. 119, fifth paragraph, of the Constitution.

The provision according to which the burden relating to the public finance contribution is distributed, pursuant to art. 1, paragraph 786, of Law no. 207 of 2024, among all entities, both in surplus and in deficit, while "the benefit related to coverage charged to the State budget for investment expenditure," based on the challenged paragraph 790, benefits "only the entities that have a surplus," would therefore be constitutionally illegitimate.

2.2.2.– The third period of the cited paragraph 790 would present "further and autonomous aspects of illegitimacy" of a constitutional nature, providing in a manner deemed unreasonable and arbitrary that, for the purpose of identifying the entities allowed to use the contribution to finance investments, "Regions and Autonomous Provinces consider the administrative deficit net of the portion resulting from authorized and uncontracted debt" (hereinafter, also: DANC).

In this regard, the applicant Region observes that as a result of the said provision, the GDP of Regions not in deficit or "in deficit only due to authorized and uncontracted debt" would increase, following the expansion of spending capacity, both current and investment, generated by the provision itself; conversely, the GDP of deficit Regions would contract.

In support of this complaint, Judgment no. 274 of 2017 of this Court is cited, which declared the unconstitutionality of a provision of a regional budget adjustment law because, in violation of art. 81, third paragraph, of the Constitution, it provided for the application to the budget of a portion of the administrative surplus of the previous year, even in the presence of a negative result, having erroneously considered as an active component, among others, the item of the "set of authorized and uncontracted loans for investments which, instead, [...] materialize as non-existent assets."

Therefore, the claim notes, if the DANC mechanism results in a deficit, this "must be treated as such," as confirmed by the existence of "a precise method for recovering the portion of the deficit resulting from authorized and uncontracted debt," contained in the accounting principles applicable to financial accounting (paragraph 5.3.4-bis of Annex 4/2 to Legislative Decree of June 23, 2011, no. 118, concerning "Provisions on the harmonization of accounting systems and budget formats of Regions, local authorities, and their bodies, pursuant to Articles 1 and 2 of Law of May 5, 2009, no. 42," is cited).

The reasons for the differentiated treatment provided by the provision in question are therefore unclear, especially considering that, on the other hand, when regulating the contribution to public finance established by the 2024 budget law, the legislator expressly included the deficit from DANC in the administrative deficit, requiring Regions in this situation to allocate in the 2024 fiscal year budget forecast a fund equal to the amount of the contribution due and to allocate the saving, recorded in the statement of accounts for the same financial year, to the reduction of the said deficit (based on the provision of art. 1, paragraph 527-ter, of Law of December 30, 2023, no. 213, concerning "State Budget Law for the fiscal year 2024 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2024-2026," inserted by art. 19, paragraph 1, letter b, of Decree-Law of August 9, 2024, no. 113, concerning "Urgent fiscal measures, extensions of regulatory deadlines and economic interventions," converted, with amendments, into Law of October 7, 2024, no. 143).

In conclusion, Articles 3, 81, 97, and 119 of the Constitution would be violated; the conflict with the latter would also account for the redundancy of the injury to the sphere of constitutional attributions of the applicant Region, engaged in the deficit recovery plan, in consideration of the negative effects of the provision in question on regional GDP and on the economic and social conditions of the citizens of its territory.

2.3.– As argued in the third ground for the claim, the provisions of paragraphs 792 and 793 of art. 1 of Law no. 207 of 2024 violate Articles 3, 53, 81, 97, 117, 119, and 120 of the Constitution, by providing for "heavy sanctions, in terms of an increase in the contribution to public finance," for the cases of failure to allocate the contribution in the budget and failure to transmit the final or pre-final statement of accounts relating to the previous financial year to the public administrations database.

Specifically, they: a) "would aggravate the amount of the contribution in the absence of an effective economic-financial necessity," but only as a consequence "direct and automatic of non-compliance with the established deadlines"; b) omit to provide that it is the Permanent Conference for Relations between the State, the Regions, and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano that determines "the quantification" or participates in this operation; c) violate the rationale of the contribution, since the related increase would be quantified "without any fact-finding activity regarding the concrete sustainability" by the interested Region, which would not be involved "in the procedure," which is moreover not even outlined, as the provision would establish an automatic sanction.

2.4.– With the final ground, paragraphs 796 and 797, letters a) and d), of art. 1 of Law no. 207 of 2024 are finally challenged, as they respectively affect paragraphs 139 and 134 of art. 1 of Law no. 145 of 2018.

The claim notes that the aforementioned provisions made State resources available to Regions and Municipalities, "regardless of the financial status" of these entities, for a series of purposes concerning citizens' rights – such as safety, mobility, pollution reduction – and providing for priority allocation for Municipalities in the South.

However, as a result of the challenged provisions, the State funding allocated to Regions is suppressed starting from 2027 – thus eliminating the allocation already provided for in the budget forecast for the three-year period 2025-2027 for the Campania Region, for the year 2027, for approximately 32 million euros from the resources under the aforementioned art. 1, paragraph 134, of Law no. 145 of 2018 –, while that intended for Municipalities has been significantly reduced.

These provisions, in addition to conflicting with all the parameters invoked "for the same reasons set out with reference to the preceding paragraphs," expressly recalled, make "the foundation of the complaints specifically articulated against the provisions of challenged paragraphs 784, 786, 789, 790, 792, and 793 evident," particularly regarding the aspects of unreasonableness and arbitrariness, as well as the lack of fact-finding.

The claim emphasizes that, with reference to the combination of the aforementioned measures – cuts in transfers and expansion of investment expenditure – provided for in the government bill, the Parliamentary Budget Office, in its hearing before the Joint Budget Committees of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic, on November 5, 2024, signaled the "overall negative" net effects on the capital expenditure of local authorities.

It finally observes that, in order to allow the achievement of the objective of regional co-financing of programs funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the Campania Region, after more than a decade since the last borrowing, "had to authorize recourse to debt" through the regional law approving the 2025-2027 budget forecast, thus incurring the costs related to debt service. From this perspective, the impossibility of using the allocation under art. 1, paragraph 789, of Law no. 207 of 2024 would penalize disadvantaged Regions.

In conclusion, paragraphs 796 and 797, letters a) and d), of art. 1 of Law no. 207 of 2024, also in conjunction with the preceding paragraph 790, violate Articles 3, 97, and 119, as well as Articles 81 and 120 of the Constitution, given that the injury to the sphere of regional attributions is objective and evident, also because the indicated provisions, by omitting to provide for "equalization instruments" and, indeed, creating "a mechanism aimed at increasing disparities between territories," would contribute "to the perpetuation and crystallization of factual conditions" such as to limit the exercise of constitutional prerogatives for the most disadvantaged Regions.

3.– With an act filed on April 10, 2025, the President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Attorney's Office, constituted itself in the proceedings, requesting the dismissal of the claim.

3.1.– With the challenged provisions, the State would have intended to establish the modalities for the participation of local authorities in achieving public finance objectives and complying with the economic and financial constraints arising from the new rules of European economic governance.

Considering the necessity to respect the national trajectory of the net expenditure indicator, the State legislator, through norms classifiable as fundamental principles of public finance coordination, would have limited itself to determining overall the contribution required from ordinary statute Regions, leaving them adequate margins of autonomy on the expenditure items to which to apply the savings, as would emerge from the mechanism described by art. 1, paragraph 789, of Law no. 207 of 2024, which does not indicate "specific reduction measures, which are left to the budgetary autonomy of the individual entity." Moreover, already during the allocation of the contribution, the provision that it is made based on the agreement among the Regions themselves, through self-coordination, would leave "ample scope for freedom" regarding the areas on which to act; even in the case of the substitute State intervention, constraints on the sectors on which to concentrate expenditure containment would not have been added, with the sectors most related to social rights being, in fact, excluded.

The State Attorney's Office, deeming the issues raised with reference to art. 53 of the Constitution inadmissible, "as this is not a matter of taxation," considers that the conditions required by constitutional jurisprudence for the provision of legitimate principles of financial coordination are respected in this case. In fact, expenditure reviews would be temporary and ensure the involvement of local authorities in compliance with the principle of loyal collaboration.

Regarding the complaint about the sustainability of the contribution by the Regions, the State defense notes that the applicant has not provided proof that it cannot meet it and that, in any case, the ratio of the contribution charged to the Campania Region compared to the total current expenditure of the regional budget "is not such as to affect the entity's capacity to fulfill its institutional duties."

The complaints against paragraphs 796 and 797, letters a) and d), of art. 1 of Law no. 207 of 2024 should also be dismissed, as the effect of the revision of the contributions, provided for herein toward Regions and Municipalities, should be assessed "taking into account the extraordinary resources allocated to them within the scope of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and the National Complementary Plan."

3.2.– The State defense also contests the validity of the complaint which, by interpreting Judgment no. 195 of 2024 of this Court, considers the principle of loyal collaboration violated, for having the challenged provisions omitted to provide for the involvement of the Permanent Conference for the Coordination of Public Finance. The aforementioned ruling would not be traceable to the category of decisions of unconstitutionality ascertained but not declared but would constitute, rather, "a milder expression of the powers of direction exercisable by the Court towards the legislator."

3.3.– The same judgment, in the part where it recalled the necessity for deficit settlement to occur within a contained timeframe, would refute the grievance regarding the different treatment reserved to Regions in administrative deficit, being unable to use the resources from the public finance contribution to finance investments.

On the other hand, looking at the ultimate and unified objective that the discipline of the challenged paragraph 790 contributes to pursuing, it would allow achieving objectives in favor of local authorities, such as "the rebalancing of the budgets of entities in financial crisis" and "the requalification of expenditure and the support of growth" for those not in deficit.

3.4.– The provision excluding the portion of the deficit resulting from DANC from the mechanism of challenged paragraph 790 would therefore not be unreasonable or arbitrary, given the "characteristics of this form of deficit, functional to the needs of the public finance accounts adjustment path" required by the new European economic rules.

In fact, unlike other forms of administrative deficit, that resulting from DANC "favors the realization of investments without increasing public debt and is intended to be settled without generating reductions in current expenditure, through recourse to new debt, to be contracted only to meet actual cash needs."

Nor would the reference made by the applicant Region to the treatment recognized to the deficit resulting from DANC by art. 1, paragraph 527-ter, of Law no. 213 of 2023 be significant, since this provision was defined "pending the new rules of European governance."

3.5.– Finally, the complaints against the challenged paragraphs 792 and 793 would also be unfounded, as they, by regulating the sanctioning effects of non-compliance with the deadlines for implementing the public finance contribution, would constitute measures "necessary to guarantee the achievement of public finance objectives" and would not violate art. 120 of the Constitution, as they merely sanction a default by the individual entity.

Considered in Law

1.– With the claim indicated in the heading (Reg. Claims no. 13 of 2025), the Campania Region raised issues of constitutional legitimacy of art. 1, paragraphs 784, 786, 789, 790, 792, 793, 796 and 797, letters a) and d), of Law no. 207 of 2024.

1.1.– Based on the first six provisions, for the purpose of achieving public finance objectives and complying with the constraints arising from the new European economic governance, through provisions classified as fundamental principles of public finance coordination (paragraph 784), ordinary statute Regions have been required to provide a contribution, additional to that provided for by existing legislation, amounting to 280 million euros for the year 2025, 840 million euros for each of the years from 2026 to 2028, and 1,310 million euros for the year 2029 (paragraph 786, first period) and the allocation of which is determined through self-coordination among the Regions, or, in the absence of an agreement, through a State measure, in proportion to the current expenditure incurred by each Region, but with the exclusion, among others, of the entire healthcare perimeter and expenditures of Mission 12, relating to "Social Rights, Social Policies, and Family" (paragraph 786, second and third periods).

The implementation of the contribution requires Regions to compress current expenditure in each of the years from 2025 to 2029; this is done by entering into the budget a fund of an amount equal to the contribution due, against which expenditure commitments cannot be made, and which must be financed through current resources (paragraph 789).

At the end of each financial year, the fund in question therefore constitutes a saving, which, for entities in a situation of administrative deficit, contributes to settling that deficit in addition to the ordinary recovery plan. For entities not in deficit, however, the amount of the contribution to public finance, entered in the aforementioned fund, is designated to finance investments in the following financial year. For the purpose of the latter alternative, Regions consider the administrative deficit net of the portion resulting from authorized and uncontracted debt (paragraph 790).

The discipline of the public finance contribution is completed by the provision of a sanction for entities failing to comply with the obligations to allocate the fund and transmit the statements of accounts to the public administrations database (paragraphs 792 and 793).

1.2.– By virtue of the other two provisions challenged, paragraphs 796 and 797, letters a) and d), determine, respectively, the reduction and the cancellation of contributions for investments allocated to Municipalities and ordinary statute Regions by paragraphs 139 and 134 of art. 1 of Law no. 145 of 2018.

2.– The Region challenges, first, with a first set of complaints, the provisions of paragraphs 784, 786, and 789 of art. 1 of Law no. 207 of 2024, which violate, under various profiles, Articles 3, 53, 81, 97, 117, 119, and 120 of the Constitution.

2.1.– Preliminarily, the question raised with reference to art. 53 of the Constitution must be declared inadmissible, as correctly objected to by the President of the Council of Ministers, this being an irrelevant parameter with respect to the challenged provisions, which do not concern tax provisions but principles of financial coordination applicable to local authorities.

2.2.– The first complaint firstly laments the detailed nature of the provisions contained in the aforesaid provisions, which could therefore not be classified as fundamental principles of the subject matter, falling under concurrent legislative competence, "coordination of public finance."

The complaint is unfounded.

According to the constant jurisprudence of this Court, "State norms that set limits on the expenditure of Regions and local authorities may be classified as fundamental principles of public finance coordination on the condition, among others, that they limit themselves to providing for an overall containment of current expenditure of a transitional nature" (ex plurimis, Judgment no. 195 of 2024).

In line with this jurisprudence, the State legislator, with the challenged provisions, limited itself to determining the overall amount of the contributions required, within the limited timeframe of the five-year period, from ordinary statute Regions, leaving them adequate margins of autonomy on the expenditure items to which to apply the savings, since the relevant allocation is expressly left to the agreement among the Regions through self-coordination.

Moreover, even in the absence of such an agreement, the subsidiary intervention of the State authority is limited to quantifying the overall amounts due by each Region, without adding constraints regarding the sectors on which to concentrate expenditure containment, except for excluding those related to social rights and healthcare, and this in conformity with the jurisprudence of this Court which requires compliance with constitutionally necessary expenditure (most recently, again Judgment no. 195 of 2024).

As for the contribution methods, it should be noted that this Court has also included specific norms within the scope of coordination principles, when they have been adopted by the legislator to effectively achieve the "purpose" of financial coordination (Judgment no. 78 of 2020): it is, in fact, the "purpose-driven" nature (Judgment no. 38 of 2016) inherent in this type of provision that allows ruling out a detailed norm, if these are linked by an evident relationship of co-essentiality and necessary integration with the same coordination principles (ex plurimis, Judgment no. 137 of 2018).

Furthermore, the contribution dynamic structured by the challenged provisions presents important differences compared to the previous two contributions, established respectively by the 2021 budget law and, originally, by the 2024 budget law, which in reality were set up in terms more invasive of regional autonomy: while these provided for a direct transfer of local authorities' own resources to the State budget, the one under examination keeps them in the entities' budgets, although conditioning their destination.

From this point of view, the provision on the contribution methods is therefore suitable for correctly pursuing the final objective underlying the fundamental principles of dynamic coordination of public finance.

2.3.– A second aspect of the complaint derives the violation of the invoked parameters from the additional nature of the public finance contribution, which is added to the coordination measures already in progress, without adequate fact-finding having been carried out on the appropriateness and sustainability of the measure.

In this regard, the applicant specifies that the contribution required from ordinary statute Regions by the 2025 budget law for the years 2025 to 2029 overlaps, for a large part of the period, with that already introduced by the previous budget law for the years 2024 to 2028 and, for the year 2025, also with that established by the 2021 budget law for the three-year period 2023-2025.

In particular, as regards loyal collaboration, the applicant believes that the solicitation addressed to the legislator by Judgment no. 195 of 2024 of this Court on the need to involve the Permanent Conference for the Coordination of Public Finance has been violated.

On the merits, it should be noted that, in effect, according to the aforementioned ruling, such involvement is functional to safeguarding the constitutional framework, i.e., "to avert the adoption of 'blind cuts,' which, besides potentially being unsustainable for local authorities, with unpredictable repercussions on the services offered to the population, would also prevent a transparent assessment in Parliament. In relation to this need and in the perspective of the new European economic governance, which provides [...] for the temporal extension of net expenditure containment measures mentioned in the Structural Budget Plan, the need for substantial, and not merely formal, compliance with the principle of loyal collaboration becomes even more apparent."

The State Attorney's Office is therefore mistaken when it claims that the solicitation in the cited judgment would constitute "a milder expression of the powers of direction exercisable by the Court."

As a result of the aforesaid overlaps, the total contribution due from ordinary statute Regions amounts to 805 million euros for the year 2025, 1,190 million euros for each of the years from 2026 to 2028, and 1,310 million euros for the year 2029.

These are considerable amounts, which significantly impact the financial autonomy of the Regions, whose views must necessarily be heard at least in the venues appropriately established by the legal system, also in order to provide Parliament with the essential factual elements necessary to make decisions.

Otherwise, there is a strong risk that the needs for public expenditure containment will be excessively loaded onto regional autonomies, thus frustrating their very possibility of being generative within that institutional pluralism that the Constitution aims to guarantee.

Having clarified this, all complaints must nevertheless be deemed unfounded, as the cited judgment was filed on December 6, 2024, thus after the budget committees of the two Chambers had already acquired information on the contents of the budget bill with a cycle of informal hearings (held on the topics of local authority finance on November 5, 2024). Given the tight timeline for the parliamentary approval of the budget maneuver, it can be considered that the request to benefit from the fact-finding contribution provided by the Permanent Conference for the Coordination of Public Finance would not have been concretely enforceable before the adoption of the challenged law.

The involvement of the aforementioned Permanent Conference must, however, be considered certainly indispensable for the next budget maneuver, as clarified above.

Consequently, the State could not in the future invoke tight procedural times to neutralize the need for a more complete involvement of autonomies in the process of adopting fundamental public finance decisions in the budget law.

2.4.– The further complaints focused on the discipline of the contribution allocation, regarding both the magnitude of public expenditure, taken as a criterion subsidiarily in the event of a lack of agreement, and the self-coordination which, according to the claim, leaves adequate margins of discretion to the Regions, are not founded.

Under the first profile, the applicant cites data relating to additional resources acquired by activating the regional tax lever on the IRPEF surcharge and on IRAP, highlighting that these resources, given the impact of public finance contributions in the period from 2015 to 2023, would not have been used "to provide greater services to citizens, but to finance Campania's contribution to public finance objectives."

The complaint in question misses the mark, because by adopting the criterion of current expenditure, the legislator intended, in reality, to constrain the discretion of the ministerial authority, to whom the delicate operation of allocating the contribution is delegated when the agreement through self-coordination among the Regions has not been reached. For these purposes, this magnitude is based on an objective fact, resulting from the last approved statement of accounts, which in turn derives from the management choices autonomously adopted by the individual local authority. It is therefore a financial indicator suitable for distributing the burden of the contribution among the entities and difficult to replace with others; moreover, the applicant itself does not propose an alternative criterion adequate to avoid the invoked vulnerabilities.

It must also be considered that, since the challenged public finance contribution does not subtract financial resources from the Regions but keeps them in their budgets, the reference, as formulated, to the use of the tax lever is not pertinent.

As already specified, the new contribution differs from the previous ones; an aspect also noted in the hearing of the Parliamentary Budget Office: "[I]n the recent past, the contribution of local authorities to public finance objectives has occurred through different forms: by resorting to cuts in State transfers (as in the years from 2011 to 2015), by withdrawing the resources of the various sectors and having them flow into the State budget (as occurred for a part of the contribution charged to Provinces in the years between 2011 and 2015 and for the spending review measures introduced from 2023 [...]) or by imposing an obligation on the Entities to achieve positive surpluses that were acquired for the benefit of public finance balances (as when the Stability Pact was in force). In addition to direct measures, current expenditure has also been kept under control through indirect interventions such as, for example, the blocking of staff turnover or the imposition of other constraints on personnel recruitment" (document from the Parliamentary Budget Office, filed at the hearing of November 5, 2024).

As for the second aspect of the complaint, the legislative provision does not violate the principle of loyal collaboration, since the allocation is expressly left to the agreement reached through self-coordination, through the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, "thus leaving ample scope for freedom also with reference to the areas on which to act" (again, Judgment no. 195 of 2024).

3.– The Region then challenges, with the second ground for the claim, paragraph 790, which violates, under various profiles, Articles 3, 81, 97, art. 117, third paragraph, and 119 of the Constitution, by prescribing different modalities, depending on the presence or absence of a deficit, for the use of the fund allocated in the budget for an amount equal to the contribution due to public finance.

3.1.– With respect to the order of illustration of the complaints in the claim, the examination of those raised against the third period of the aforementioned provision, pursuant to which "[f]or the purposes of this paragraph, Regions and Autonomous Provinces shall consider the administrative deficit net of the portion resulting from authorized and uncontracted debt," is logically prioritized, as the constitutional legitimacy of this criterion must first be assessed.

In this regard, the applicant complains that, by establishing the deduction from the amount of the administrative deficit of the portion resulting from DANC, the provision violates Articles 3, 81, 97, and 119 of the Constitution, by differentiating the treatment of this type of deficit in an unreasonable manner and in contrast with the principles of budget balance.

The issue is admissible, as the sphere of legislative competence indirectly affected by the State discipline has been clearly identified and the requirement of redundancy has been adequately illustrated, further highlighting the interest of the applicant in asserting the complaint, which would derive from the need for par condicio among the Regions in the adoption of State financial coordination measures (Judgments no. 192, point 8.1. of Considered in Law, and no. 139 of 2024, point 2.2. of Considered in Law).

The complaint is, however, unfounded.

It is true that this Court, in Judgment no. 274 of 2017, declared the unconstitutionality of a regional budget adjustment law for the 2016 fiscal year because, in violation of the coverage obligation under art. 81, third paragraph, of the Constitution, it provided for the application to that year's budget of a portion of the administrative surplus of the previous year, whereas, instead, this result was to be considered negative, having erroneously considered as an active component, among others, "the set of authorized and uncontracted loans for investments which, instead, [...] materialize as non-existent assets": the judgment had in fact referred to the pathologies to which the institution of the aforesaid authorized but uncontracted loans had given rise in the practice of the Regions.

This is what emerges from the combined provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 of art. 40 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011 – added by art. 1, paragraph 1, letter aa), of Legislative Decree of August 10, 2014, no. 126 (Supplementary and corrective provisions of Legislative Decree of June 23, 2011, no. 118, concerning provisions on the harmonization of accounting systems and budget formats of Regions, local authorities, and their bodies, pursuant to Articles 1 and 2 of Law of May 5, 2009, no. 42) – and art. 1, paragraph 688-bis, of Law of December 28, 2015, no. 208, concerning "Provisions for the formation of the annual and multi-year budget of the State (Stability Law 2016)."

However, it should be specified that this conclusion was reached by the judgment based on the accounting discipline applicable at the time, where the practice of authorizing the contracting of loans subsequently not stipulated was prohibited by the State legislator, who, at the same time, with an exceptional intervention, established a temporary discipline that, acknowledging past distress, allowed for the recovery of loans already authorized in the past but not finalized, and this only until the end of the 2016 financial year.

This discipline, subsequent to the aforementioned judgment, was, however, amended by art. 1, paragraph 937, of Law no. 145 of 2018, which, by inserting paragraph 2-bis into art. 40 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011, reintroduced the institution of DANC into the Regions' accounting system "with the aim of promoting the realization of public investments, without increasing public debt, and saving interest expenditure" (Chamber of Deputies no. 1334 – XVIII Legislature – Explanatory Report on the 2019 budget bill, with reference to art. 70).

Alongside this provision, which, to avoid the risk of cash liquidity tensions, expressly conditions recourse to the DANC instrument on compliance by the Region with payment deadlines for commercial obligations, the subsequent paragraph 938, "in order to ensure the correlation between investments and authorized and uncontracted debt," introduced into the same Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011, art. 11, paragraph 6, letters d-bis) and d-ter), the provision of specific accounting transparency fulfillments.

Regions are therefore required to list in the management report attached to the statement of accounts both the commitments for investment expenditures pertaining to the financial year financed by recourse to uncontracted debt, and the commitments for investment expenditures that resulted in the deficit from authorized and uncontracted debt at the end of the year, distinguished by year of formation.

In conclusion, compared to the statements contained in the cited Judgment no. 274 of 2017, the currently applicable legal framework, on the one hand, registers again an institution that allows for the coverage of investment expenditures with a modality derogating from the ordinary need to use legally ascertained revenues (the latter cannot be considered, by definition, as those consisting of loans to be contracted); on the other hand, however, it appears to have circumscribed the use of DANC by providing for various precautionary measures, not considered before.

The legislative choice to exclude the portion of the deficit from DANC from the mechanism of paragraph 790 of art. 1 of Law no. 207 of 2024, whose rationale is to speed up the recovery of deficits for which the system provides settlement within a certain time, cannot therefore be considered manifestly unreasonable.

In fact, for the settlement of that resulting from DANC, the rule established in general by art. 42, paragraph 12, of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011, which requires the recovery of the deficit in the first financial year in progress at the date of approval of the statement of accounts, or in the two subsequent financial years of the budget forecast period, and in any case no later than the duration of the legislature, does not apply.

In essence, since the portion of the deficit resulting from DANC can be covered "by recourse to debt, to be contracted only to meet actual cash needs" (art. 40, paragraph 2-bis, of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011), the obligation to settle remains "suspended" until these needs become actual.

The aforementioned conclusion is not contradicted by the provision – pointed out by the applicant in an attempt to highlight the unreasonableness of the challenged provision – of art. 1, paragraph 527-ter, of Law no. 213 of 2023, as amended, which allowed Regions "in administrative deficit as of December 31, 2023," including the deficit from authorized and uncontracted debt, to fulfill the public finance contribution, instead of in the originally provided form of direct payment to the State budget, through the allocation in a fund aimed at reducing said deficits.

The latter provision and the challenged one have different rationales: the first, in fact, was functional to allowing all Regions, including those whose deficit derived only from DANC, to access the alternative form of payment of the contribution provided; the second, instead, to allowing investment expenditure.

Having clarified this, however, it remains to note the particular prudence that must accompany the enhancement of the practice of recourse to DANC, which, despite the new precautions introduced, can still lead to distortions in the use of cash flows, as noted, during the audit of the final statement of accounts of the Campania Region, fiscal year 2024, by the Court of Auditors, regional control section for Lombardy (Decision of July 17, 2025, no. 230, attached report, pages 11-12).

3.2.– According to the applicant, the challenged paragraph 790, by precluding deficit Regions from financing investments with the fund allocated in the budget pursuant to the preceding paragraph 789, would also violate the principles of formal and substantive equality under art. 3 of the Constitution, by aggravating the existing differences between regional territories, as well as the principle of good administration of the public administration under art. 97 of the Constitution, by contradicting the existing constraint, for Regions under a recovery plan pursuant to art. 1, paragraph 780, of Law no. 205 of 2017, to ensure a specific level of investment expenditure.

3.2.1.– With reference to the first aspect, the regional complaint demanding that deficit Regions also be able to use the entire contribution for investment expenditure is unfounded. This Court has already highlighted that the obligation to promptly settle administrative deficits "also responds to the principle of responsibility in the administration of the resources of the territorial community" (Judgment no. 195 of 2024). The challenged provision, aiming to speed up the realization of the recovery plan, is therefore not unreasonable in itself.

However, it should be noted that, in effect, the mechanism provided for by paragraph 790 proves to be excessively rigid because deficit Regions are entirely excluded from the possibility of using the resources corresponding to the contribution to finance investments, reserved exclusively for Regions without an administrative deficit (moreover, net, as seen, of the deficit from DANC).

This excessive rigidity causes negative externalities on infrastructural equalization among the various ordinary statute Regions, given that only a few of them, during the five-year period of application of the contribution, considering the deficit recovery times, will be able to implement investment expenditure.

It is true that in the period covered by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and the National Complementary Plan, approximately nineteen billion euros of investment expenditure were allocated, as demonstrated in the public hearing by the State Attorney's Office in response to the specific question formulated by this Court pursuant to art. 10, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, for projects whose implementing bodies are ordinary statute Regions, and that, per capita, expenditure was higher in Regions such as Campania, also considering the needs for infrastructural equalization.

However, it is also true that the time horizon of the aforementioned Plans is set to expire well before the five-year period of reference for the new contribution and that in the 2025 budget law itself, with the challenged paragraph 797, specific State funding intended for the investments of ordinary statute Regions for significant amounts – unlikely to be compensated by the allocation of the contribution to investment expenditure, which can realistically affect, as mentioned, only a few Regions – previously authorized until the year 2034, and now defunded starting from 2027, have been cancelled.

Moreover, both the hearing of the Court of Auditors and that of the Parliamentary Budget Office, already cited, signaled critical issues in this regard.

In the former, in fact, although the increase in funds for the National Health Service and for municipal equalization was positively noted, as well as the establishment of a new fund – but only for State central administrations – for national investments and infrastructural development, the risk was highlighted, with reference to the "post-PNRR period," of "strongly weakening the impetus given by the projects" included therein and the exacerbation of "disparities in capital endowment between territorial areas" (document of the Court of Auditors, filed at the hearing of November 5, 2024, pages 95-96).

In the latter, the "failure to implement Law 42/2009 for the part relating to infrastructural equalization," the absence of effective indicators to detect territorial criticalities, and the existence of "overall negative" net effects on the capital expenditure of local authorities were underlined (document of the Parliamentary Budget Office, filed at the hearing of November 5, 2024, pages 134 and 136).

The total preclusion for the entire five-year period of use for investments by deficit Regions proves, in effect, potentially capable of determining, at the end of the period of application of the public finance contribution, excessive infrastructural gaps between territories, due to a discrimination between Regions that may reflect a prejudice to the principle of substantive equality.

This Court, therefore, deems it necessary to urge the legislator, for the financial years subsequent to the current one, to revise, in a physiological dialectic with the Regions aimed at the common good, the excessive rigidity of the mechanism, allowing deficit Regions also to use a part of the contribution for investment expenditure.

It is true that the "obligation to avoid the production of deficits and, in any case, to settle them in contained terms, according to the modalities defined by the State rules for accounting harmonization, follows, on the one hand, from the principles of good administration, expenditure coverage, and budget balance" (Judgment no. 195 of 2024).

However, it is also true that these principles cannot become "tyrants," completely compressing, in this case, the possibility of investment expenditure for deficit Regions, which is also functional to filling the serious infrastructural deficit that still penalizes the development potential of various areas of our country.

3.2.2.– The complaint concerning the same paragraph 790 with reference to the principle of good administration of the public administration under art. 97 of the Constitution is also unfounded, since the discipline recalled by the applicant – relating to the settlement of deficits accrued as of December 31, 2015, including that of Campania – requires, in light of the significant derogation from the deficit settlement deadline, the commitment of the Region to increase overall payments for investments for the years 2018 to 2026. This means that the increase to be achieved for the year 2026 – the only one that, hypothetically, overlaps with the operation of the challenged mechanism – presupposes that the funding of investments was previously allocated in the regional budget and, above all, that the progress of the interventions has led to actual payments.

The challenged provision is instead intended to finance new investments in a time frame in which the discipline referred to by the applicant will have substantially exhausted its application.

Therefore, the suggested interference between the special discipline for deficit settlement and the challenged provision must be excluded.

3.4.– Finally, according to the Campania Region, the preclusion resulting from the challenged paragraph 790 unreasonably prevents deficit Regions, in violation of art. 119, fifth paragraph, of the Constitution, from benefiting from the "benefit related to coverage charged to the State budget for investment expenditure."

The complaint is unfounded.

It is based on the assumption that the possibility granted to surplus entities to use the fund for investments has "a cost to the treasury, precisely specified" in the technical report on the budget bill, and that the financing of investments allowed to the aforementioned entities is borne by the State budget, with resources comparable to those referred to in art. 119, fifth paragraph, of the Constitution, from which deficit entities are excluded.

This assumption is flawed.

In reality, what the applicant qualifies as a "cost to the treasury" does not represent a burden for which the State budget has provided specific coverage, but only the quantification of the financial effects of the provision on the balances concerning public administrations.

The entire contribution mechanism does not, in fact, determine transfers of resources either from local authorities to the State, or vice versa, to the benefit of surplus entities: in fact, the financing of investments allowed to the latter occurs by using the savings recorded at the end of the financial year on the fund allocated in the budget with the entity's own resources.

In conclusion, the inaccuracy of the premise undermines the validity of the complaint.

4.– With a third set of complaints, the applicant challenges paragraphs 792 and 793 of art. 1 of Law no. 207 of 2024 for violation of Articles 3, 53, 81, 97, 117, 119, and 120 of the Constitution, as: a) they would provide for "heavy sanctions" only as a consequence "direct and automatic of non-compliance with the established deadlines"; b) they would omit to involve the State-Regions Conference in determining the quantification of the sanction; c) they would impose a sanctioning measure without any fact-finding activity regarding the concrete sustainability by the interested Region and without providing for its participation in the application procedure.

4.1.– For the reasons already illustrated (supra, point 2.1.), the issue raised with reference to art. 53 of the Constitution is inadmissible.

4.2.– The remaining complaints are unfounded.

Regarding the automatic application aspect, it does not seem doubtful that within the scope of public finance coordination it is up to the State legislator to define a system of sanctions, identifying the necessary measures that constitute a "natural deterrent for every single infringement by local authorities of public finance constraints" (Judgment no. 77 of 2019).

Regarding the specific complaint about the necessity of a prior verification of the sanction's sustainability, it should be noted that the challenged provision does not provide for an increase, as a sanction, of the contribution due and not allocated in the budget, but limits itself to establishing that this amount is to be allocated to the fund in the following financial year, in which the monitoring of the measure is carried out. Therefore, the absence of a true punitive nature of the mechanism in question inherently excludes the need to condition its applicability on a sustainability verification by the entity.

The provision in the case of non-compliance with the obligation to transmit final data to the public administrations database is different, in which case the amount of the contribution due is increased by ten percent. The quantification of this sanction is, however, contained within a measure proportionate to achieving the deterrent effect. Consequently, even for this provision, the alleged violation of the invoked parameters is absent.

Overall, therefore, the measures established in response to non-compliance appear designed at a minimum level, such as to exclude even a conflict with the principle of loyal collaboration due to the omission to provide for the involvement of the conference system in the quantification of the increase.

Finally, the alleged gap regarding the participation of the interested Region in the procedure is also excluded, as the general principles of administrative procedure would in any case apply in the implementation of the sanctioning mechanism.

5.– With a final set of issues, the claim challenges art. 1, paragraphs 796 and 797, letters a) and d), of Law no. 207 of 2024, as they, by reducing, the first, and zeroing out, the second, the authorizations for State contributions for investments of Municipalities and ordinary statute Regions, these provisions violate, in particular, Articles 3, 97, and 119, as well as Articles 81 and 120 of the Constitution, by omitting to provide for "equalization instruments" and, indeed, creating "a mechanism aimed at increasing disparities between territories," thus contributing "to the perpetuation and crystallization of factual conditions" such as to limit the exercise of constitutional prerogatives for the most disadvantaged Regions.

In light of what was specified in point 3.2.1., the complaints are unfounded.

The challenged provisions intervene on State resources classifiable as additional, pursuant to art. 119, fifth paragraph, of the Constitution, determining their re-modulation in the context of allocation choices included in a public finance maneuver.

With reference to funds thus characterized, the jurisprudence of this Court has held it possible for them to be "subject to a new programming, in light of evaluations of national strategic interest" (Judgment no. 143 of 2017).

In other words, these are "State resources not yet used, which, based on a renewed evaluation of public finance needs, receive a new destination in the State budget deemed more appropriate in relation to the changed economic policy framework" (Judgment no. 207 of 2011).

Furthermore, the basis for the re-modulations made by the challenged provisions also lies in the link between these and the mechanism that allows local authorities in administrative surplus to use the public finance contribution to finance investments. The same report on the budget bill explicitly states that all the defunding of local authorities takes into account the provision for the aforementioned application method of the contribution (Chamber of Deputies no. 2112 – XIX Legislature – Report on the 2025 budget bill – page 151).

In effect, as far as the local authority sector is concerned, the majority of which have administrative surpluses, the reduction in transfers can find compensation, in the period considered, in the designation of the contribution to investment expenditure.

As highlighted in point 3.2.1., the same positive balance is not, however, foreseeable for Regions.

However, for these local authorities, the operation of the challenged defunding is not immediate, but deferred to 2027, so that the prejudice to infrastructural equalization can be avoided by the legislator by following the request of this Court to intervene, in the financial years subsequent to the current one, for a less rigid modulation of the alternative on the use of the contribution.

for these reasons

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

1) declares inadmissible the issues of constitutional legitimacy of art. 1, paragraphs 784, 786, 789, 792 and 793, of Law of December 30, 2024, no. 207 (State Budget Law for the fiscal year 2025 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2025-2027), raised, with reference to art. 53 of the Constitution, by the Campania Region with the claim indicated in the heading;

2) declares unfounded the issues of constitutional legitimacy of art. 1, paragraphs 784, 786, 789, 790, 792 and 793, of Law no. 207 of 2024, raised, with reference to Articles 3, 81, 97, 117, 119 and 120 of the Constitution, by the Campania Region with the claim indicated in the heading;

3) declares unfounded the issues of constitutional legitimacy of art. 1, paragraphs 796 and 797, letters a) and d), of Law no. 207 of 2024, raised, with reference to Articles 3, 81, 97, 119 and 120 of the Constitution, by the Campania Region with the claim indicated in the heading.

Decided thus in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on September 24, 2025.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Luca ANTONINI, Rapporteur

Roberto MILANA, Registrar

Filed in the Registry on October 16, 2025