The Budget Law of 2002 has completed the local public services reform that Parliament has been working on for some years. While waiting to ascertain the shape that such a breakthrough will assume from an applicative standpoint and the juridical developments that shall follow the filing of an infringement procedure issued by the European Commission against the Italian Government, this article deals with the main features of the new discipline and tries to shed light on some of the interpretative issues. The contribution ends with a number of considerations concerning the possible constitutional illegitimacy of article 35 of Law 448/2001 and the fact that this could prompt the Constitutional Court to declare the entire law unconstitutional.

Valeria Losco, in "ECONOMIA PUBBLICA " 3/2003, pp. , DOI: