(Jamma) The question of the municipality of Campione d'Italia, after being accepted in an odg within the decree on public administration debts in May 2013, was re-proposed yesterday by the Hon. of Pd Guerra who presented a second question to the Minister of Economy and Finance Saccomanni to ask if he is aware of the serious problems of an accounting and financial nature affecting the municipality of Campione d'Italia.
"Nn the framework of a general condition of difficulty for local authorities due to the uncertainty of the reference financial framework and the constraints on investment policies deriving from the internal stability pact, – stated Guerra – the municipality of Campione d'Italia is experiencing a specific situation of unsustainability of its budgetary policies, in relation to its particular geographical location of exclave, falling within an area considered a reference customs area of the Swiss Confederation, which determines an economic-financial structure with absolutely peculiar characteristics; for its peculiarity of exclave entirely in Swiss territory, the currency used for transactions and for drawing up the financial statements is the Swiss franc, thus having, as the municipality that approved the use of the procedure ex article 243-up to 267 of 2000, a condition of the entire legislative decree n. particular as demonstrated by the presence within its balance sheet of current expenses not attributable to those relating to functions proper to a municipality, but attributable to state powers, functions and activities as well as to relations with the Swiss Confederation governed by specific agreements;
this condition produces serious distorting effects on the mechanisms for defining the objectives of the stability pact, determining a considerable oversizing with respect to the effective possibilities of spending maneuvers by the municipality, leading, for this effect, to the impossibility of making payments to businesses over what new investments;
the location of exclave Italy has induced the Government, as early as 1933, to authorize the opening of a gambling house to enable the financing of the municipal budget. The municipality, with its share of the proceeds in Swiss francs due to it, can give financial coverage to the institutional expenses of the territorial body and above all to the particular measures in favor of its citizens required by the territorial interclusion of the municipality;
the legislator has always determined the amount of this contribution in Swiss francs on the proceeds of the gambling house with the sole purpose of ensuring the Municipality of Campione d'Italia the adequacy of the financial means to deal with a very particular situation, which does not it can be compared with other similar realities in terms of demographic size or territorial extension;
the share of proceeds attributable to the municipality, until now determined by law, serves not only to finance specific activities in the institutional sphere of the institution, but also other public services delegated to the Municipality of Campione d'Italia which, in the rest of the country, are the sole responsibility of central authorities. Among the first we highlight:
a) cost of the employees of the special municipal control service operating within the casino in order to guarantee the regularity of table games and protect the interests of the public bodies that benefit from the proceeds on the basis of the law in force (municipality of Campione d'Italia, province of Como, the province of Lecco, the province of Varese and the Ministry of the Interior);
b) integration of the pension treatments envisaged by the statutory and regulatory legislation in force at the municipal level (in order to allow pensioners to be able to bear the higher cost of the Swiss economy);
c) contribution to the Canton of Ticino for essential services (roads, transport, high school) provided to the community of Campione on the basis of the «Declaration of cooperation between the Republic and the Canton of Ticino and the Municipality of Campione d'Italia» signed between the two entities;
among the services under state competence, the following are indicated:
a) the disbursement of the border allowance to state employees (teachers and carabinieri) residing in the area;
b) the payment of the travel allowance to non-resident elementary and middle school staff
c) the expense for the overall operation of the post office, where employees of the municipality work;
these items of expenditure in Swiss francs, present only in the budget of the Municipality of Campione d'Italia, are considerable and typical and the funds to deal with them are deposited with the municipal treasury in a specific bank account in Swiss francs and remain outside the single treasury system;
following the significant contraction in the proceeds of the casino due both to the changed gaming market in Italy and to the weakening of the euro against the Swiss franc, the amount of the contribution paid by the casino to the Municipality of Campione d'Italia is been greatly reduced and consequently the municipal council approved a plan on January 3, 29, which was forced to deliberate with deed no. multi-year rebalancing ex article 243-up to 267 of 2000; of the legislative decree n.
the application in this situation of the legislation on the stability pact starting from 1 January 2013 is thus completely unsustainable and unmanageable by the municipality of Campione d'Italia, also making it impossible to implement or even reasonably adjust the plan of rebalancing approved;
this issue was the subject, by the undersigned, of agenda no. 9/00676-A/008 accepted by the Government".
The honorable Guerra then asked Minister Saccomanni if he was aware of the serious accounting and financial problems affecting the municipality of Campione d'Italia and what urgent and incisive measures he intended to adopt, also in implementation of agenda no. 9/00676-A/008 presented by the questioner and accepted by the Government in the session of the Chamber of Deputies of 14 May 2013, in order to identify specific criteria for calculating the relevant balances for the purposes of compliance with the internal stability pact, net of all those expenses in Swiss francs which the municipality of Campione d'Italia bears due to its particular geographical location.
