A constitutional referendum was held in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

on 7 October 2001.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1049 The amendment was supported by the

Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; 29 September 193612 June 2023) was an Italian Media proprietor, media tycoon and politician who served as the prime minister of Italy in three governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a mem ...

government. Voters were asked whether they approved of amending the constitution to give more powers to the

regions of Italy The regions of Italy () are the first-level administrative divisions of the Italy, Italian Republic, constituting its second Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, NUTS administrative level. There are twenty regions, #Autonomous regio ...

on issues including agriculture, education, healthcare, and taxation.Italians vote on extending rights to the regions
The Guardian, 8 October 2001 The proposals were approved by 64% of voters.Nohlen & Stöver, p1063 The resulting constitutional changes are subject of conflicting opinions regarding the practical success of the amendment; in its most evident outcome, the text of Article 117 of the

Constitution of Italy The Constitution of the Italian Republic () was ratified on 22 December 1947 by the Constituent Assembly of Italy, Constituent Assembly, with 453 votes in favour and 62 against, before coming into force on 1 January 1948, one century after the p ...

was inverted: whereas the original text listed the areas where the regions had legislative authority, where the regions and the state had shared authority, and leaving any other subject matter in the hands of the state, the new version of this article lists a series of subjects as areas of legislative authority of the state, with others having shared authority and anything that is not specifically mentioned being included in the legislative authority of the regions. This solution, typical of

federated state A federated state (also State (polity), state, province, region, Canton (administrative division), canton, Länder, land, governorate, oblast, emirate, or country) is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation ...

s, was applied to Italy (a

regional state A regional state, or a regionalised unitary state, is a term used to denote a type of state that is formally Unitary state, unitary but where a high degree of political power has been highly decentralised to regional governments. This contrasts w ...

) with marginal effective results due to a series of contributing factors that, in practice, reduced the regions' ability to legislate to almost the same level as before the constitutional reform.

Results

References

{{Italian elections

Constitutional A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

Constitutional referendums in Italy