The Regional Council challenged the national budget for 2023 before the Constitutional Court, in the part that creates a fund to support the mobility of Sardinia and Sicily.

The news is confirmed by the Region, which released a note in the evening. The appeal to the Consulta concerns paragraphs 494, 495 and 496 of article 1 of the maneuver, which establish a fund for air transport of the major islands, financing it however with only 5 million for 2023 and 15 million starting from 2024.

The appeal disputes, in particular, the fact that that allocation can be considered a compensation for the disadvantages of insularity, on the quantification of which a State-Region table has already been established for some time, born from the 2019 revenue agreement.

The fund in question, in fact, was established "in implementation of article 119 of the Constitution, in order to recognize the peculiarities of the islands and promote the necessary measures to remove the disadvantages deriving from insularity". However, it had been considered largely unsatisfactory, compared to the economic damage caused by the condition of geographical isolation (the only territorial continuity of Sardinia costs much more than those figures every year).

A month ago, in a conference in Cagliari, the former vice president of the Sicily Region Gaetano Armao had suggested that both island regions challenge the stability law precisely because of the insufficiency of that allocation. The appeal prepared by the Giunta would go precisely in that direction.

THE REGION - "We cannot allow the interests of Sardinia and the Sardinians to be called into question, especially on sensitive issues such as the right to mobility - explains the president Christian Solinas - We found ourselves faced with a fait accompli, i.e. an allocation not certainly sufficient to ensure a correct and efficient air connection system . An even more serious fact if we consider the annual withdrawal of regional resources, in the form of tax partnerships, which currently amounts to 306 million, to which we must add a further provision of around 5 million in 2023. The Sardinians who, for whatever need, those who move from the island have the right to have certainty of connections and the certainty of always being able to travel at the same price, with safe frequencies, possibly with quality aircraft . These rights continue to be denied to this day."

The State, continues President Solinas, "is also behind in quantifying the extra costs due to insularity , which was to take place within the ambit of the political technical table set up on the basis of the agreement signed in 2019 and confirmed in 2021 but which, despite the repeated solicitations of the Region, saw a sudden interruption. That table represented the ideal venue for definitively certifying the duty to remove the inequalities that Sardinian citizens and businesses have had to suffer for decades , bearing higher costs on energy, transport and other sectors which have led to a compression of opportunities for the entire Sardinian system compared to the rest of the Peninsula».

«It is evident the need to start again in the interlocutions with the Government to re-discuss the major criticalities concerning our island, historically and still today in a lower position than the other regions. We are ready to favor a new phase of development that will increase the potential of our island , but to do so it is necessary to overcome the structural delays of Sardinia, disadvantages that the State must necessarily take into account", said the Councilor for Planning and Budget , Joseph Fasolino.

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