Facing the Pandemic. Italy’s functional ‘health federalism’ and dysfunctional cooperation

This chapter assesses the legal framework put in place at the national, the subnational (regional), and the municipal levels to face the Covid-19 emergency. It seeks to identify how different measures and actors in the management of the pandemic relate to each other and points out inconsistencies and synergies as well as their impact on Italy's highly asymmetric regionalism. The different responses by the territories revealed both the potential of the country's asymmetric territorial governance and the weaknesses of its incomplete, quasi-federal system: the unclear division of powers between the centre and the regions; weak intergovernmental relations; and the high degree of differentiation in powers, administrative capacity, and political strength among the regions.