The twenty Italian Regions – all endowed with legislative powers and ad hoc administrative structures in the cultural sector (regional departments for culture / “Assessorati regionali alla cultura”, in some cases associated with other domains like education and tourism) – are split into two groups (see chart 3):
- Five autonomous Regions, created in the post-war period and endowed with more extended competencies in the cultural field. Out of these five autonomous Regions, according to their statutory laws, three – Valle d’Aosta, Sicily, and Trentino-Alto Adige – also exercise, through their decentralised Soprintendenze, exclusive and direct legislative and administrative responsibility for their own heritage assets, including the previous “national”, now “regional”, museums and sites. The devolution of functions by the State took place in the late 1970s. Therefore, in these three Regions there are no state Regional Directions for Cultural Goods and the Landscape;
- Fifteen ordinary Regions, established in 1972, whose cultural competencies were initially limited by the Constitution (Article 117) to the supervision and financial support of local museums and libraries. The subsequent devolution of responsibilities for “cultural promotion of local interest” (Law 616/1977), although falling short to meet their demand for more cultural decentralization, came as a partial acknowledgement of their active commitment in the field, the formula being vague enough to eventually allow the Regions to legislate on a fairly wide range of cultural disciplines. According to the subsequent so-called “Devolution Laws” adopted in the late 1990s, and to Constitutional Law 3/2001, ordinary Regions have now concurrent legislative powers with the State as far as managing and enhancing heritage and cultural activities are concerned.
The Regions have legislative power with respect to any matters not expressly attributed to the State or to the concurrent legislation. In particular, the development of cultural and environmental resources is a matter of concurrent legislation, for which the State only set fundamental principles. Therefore, with an approach based on vertical subsidiarity, Italian Regions carry out specific activities on several areas of cultural policy. For example, they support many training actions, covering the different educational available options of lifelong learning and continuous education in the cultural field, primarily together with the Ministry of Labour and the European Social Fund (see chapter 5.5). Moreover, in the Film and Audiovisual sector, governed in Italy by various regulations and institutes, many regional administrations have specific policies that are usually developed by regional Film Commissions (see chapter 3.5.3).
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