THE BUDGET OF THE ITALIAN STATE BETWEEN THE PANDEMIC AND THE UKRAINIAN CONFLICT, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN PROJECT
THE BUDGET OF THE ITALIAN STATE BETWEEN THE PANDEMIC AND THE UKRAINIAN CONFLICT, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN PROJECT

Summary/Abstract: The balanced budget principle was introduced with the fiscal compact at the European level to pursue the aims of the European project also with an accounting and financial instrument. This principle was constitutionalized in Italy in 2012 with Article 81. The budget variance was seen as an exceptional event to be avoided at all costs, and until 2020, events never required a budget variance. This entailed some economic sacrifice and an abrupt adaptation of Constitutional Court jurisprudence aimed at placing more emphasis on the accounting principle over the rights of certain categories of citizens. This emergency approach, over 2020 and 2021, led to as many as five budget slippages. In March 2021, the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, a fact that destabilized all political and economic relations worldwide. By November 2022, the economic situa- tion had become so unsustainable that on November 9, Parliament authorized a budget deviation to the amount of €9.1 billion. It can be said that, in the last two years, the exception clause of Article 81 Const. has been used for objectively exceptional events (pandemic and Ukrainian conflict), so that the use of the budget deviation is perfectly justified by the events. This fact, therefore stands to mean that so far, budget slippages have not negatively impacted the original rationale of the rule: to use monetary and financial leverage to evolve the European Union project.

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