The principle of fair cooperation in the Italian legal order and the intergovernmental relations between State and Regions

After the failure to implement a Chamber of Regions, the current debate on the principle of fair cooperation attempts to resolve the ex ante participation in the legislative function (or at least that concerning the provision of fundamental principles in matters of concurrent powers between State and Regions and those concerning financial autonomy) through the participation of the regions and local autonomies in the legislative process in the forms and ways envisaged by art. 11 of the l. cost. n. 3 of 2001. The possibility provided for by this provision has not yet been applied, but it is now being looked at with renewed interest because it appears to be the way to resolve the mixture of the two different forms of intergovernmental relations in the system of Conferences. In this way, in fact, the absence of a legislative coordination between the State and the Regions could be remedied, and a review of the conferences could be carried out to enhance its functionality in the implementation of public policies affecting both the state administration and the regional administration. Moreover, the need to implement a legislative link between State and Regions seems to have developed also in the constitutional case law, where, with the recent ruling no. 251 of 2016, on the c.d. reform Madia for the reorganization of the Public Administration, the principle of the agreement would have been extended to legislative acts