Country Profile: Italy

• Author: Naldini, Andrea; Pompili, Marco; Peruccacci, Eleonora
• Pages: 191-197

191

16.COUN TRY PROFI LE: I TALY

Int roduct ion

Italy is a “regionalised” country, where Constitution assigns important powers to the

Regions and,in many policy fields, the Regions and the State have a “shared”

jurisdiction. The Regions and the State can autonomously make laws in these shared

fields, although the responsibility for defining general principles and coordination is

un der th e co mpe ten ce of t he cent ra l St ate.Se ctor al p olic ies r elev ant t o St at e aid - such

as energy, RTDI and support to productive sectors - are managed through shared

com petences; consequent ly, t he St ate has only a coordin atin g role in State aid.

16.1.Sect ion 1-National r ules for t he evaluation of State aidschem es

16.1.1.Obligat ion or lack ther eof to evaluat e

In Italy a general obligation to evaluate public policies, orState aidpolicies, does not

exist , eitherat nat ional or r egion al level.

However, obligations to monitor and assess specific policies are widespreadsince the

end of the lastcentury at regional and national levels, also as a consequence of the

coh esion pol icy exp erie nce. These “e valu ati on clause s” have bee n in clud ed i n l egal act s,

gi ving bi rt h t o n ew poli cy i nst rum ent s o rde fini ng a n ew g ove rna nce of e xist ing po licies.

The distributionof t he evaluation clauses did not affect all the policy in strum ents, as it

depended on the will of the legislators165. The evaluation clause, in general, compels

public administration responsible for the intervention to report results to national or

regional Parliamenton an annual basis. With very few exceptions, impact evaluation,

as def ined in t he GB ER, has nev er bee n ca rri ed out in t he fra mew or k o f t he asse ssme nt s

re qui red by t hese clau ses. The claus es p rod uced , a s a conse que nce, an eff ort t o mon it or

po licie s, inc rea sed ava ila ble inf or ma ti on and im p rov ed acco un tab ili ty bu t di d n ot pr ov id e

eff ectiv e evaluat ions of the socio-economic effects of the p olicy.

Since the end of the previous century,State aidmeasu res experienceda similar

increase in attention for monitoring and available information, but obligations to

evaluate were never set up and, as explained in the next section, national impact

evaluationshav e been sporadic an d dependent on occasional decisions.

In the pasttwo decades institutionalisation of evaluation also made significant

progresses in several policyfields, such as education, university and labourmarket,

where specialised Agencies166have to analyse and evaluate the effects of the public

expenditure.

Finally, in I taly obligations t o ev aluate ESIFs havegreat consequences, since cohesion

policy co-finances a significant part of development policies and importantState aid

measures, especially in the Southern regions. Italyis one of the countries with the

hi ghest n um ber of ev aluat io ns i n Eur ope an d im pa ct eval uat ion s ar e r elat ive ly common.

However, t he experience of the 2007-2013 period demonstrated that, when European

165An init iat iv e fo r p rom ot ing ev aluat io n cl auses has been im pl eme nte d b y t he Conf eren ce o f t he Presid ent s

of th e Reg ion, see pr oje ct CAPI RE (http://www.capire.org/) . I n th e 2 015 -201 9 p eri od arou nd 40 -50 clau ses

hav e bee n in cluded in regi onal acts ever y ye ar, but onl y few in tere sted Stat e aid me asure s.

166The agencies are: INVALSI for education, ANVUR for higher education, INAPP and ANPAL for labour

ma rket pol icies.