Abstract
The pervasive role of the executive in the legislative function finds an unprecedented amplification in the context of federal systems, hence the concept of “executive federalism”, with financial relations and, among these, equalization mechanisms representing an emblematic forerunner of this phenomenon. The decision to isolate this specific segment of federalism studies serves a twofold purpose. First, it allows to investigate the role that remains to the elective assemblies in the elaboration of decisions in technical and complex areas like public finance and, second, it aims to analyze an area that is essential to the political autonomy of territorial authorities, thus allowing to understand how these processes have developed and what their effects are on the institutional level.
To test this preliminary assumption, the study investigates decision-making procedures on equalization mechanisms from a comparative and constitutional law perspective, with the ultimate aim to verify if and to what there is an executive drift in the different paradigms in action. Accordingly, the different federal systems of interest have been identified with the aim to portray the existing variety of ‘architectural’ solutions, ie., including in the spectrum of analysis the different paradigms that can be detected in federal systems around the globe. According to this line, the following cases will be investigated: Australia as the prototype of tax-revenue sharing on a ‘technical base’ (Commonwealth Grants Commission); Canada representing also in financial-related matters the paradigm of federal-provincial diplomacy with little, if any, legal entrenchment; Germany as the prototype of tax-revenue sharing on a ‘legislative-assembly base’ (Bundestag+Bundesrat); and, finally, Spain with the quasi-constitutional institutionalization of the CPFF as a forum for intergovernmental financial relations.